Iran to develop biggest joint oil field with Saudi Arabia

A report published by Mehr News Agency said the operation has begun by sending the first jacket related to the development of Forouzan oil field to the Persian Gulf on Sunday, April 29.

The huge structure made by a special jacket manufacturing yard in Iran's southwestern port city of Khorramshahr, weighs about 4,000 tons and is carried by a special vessel. If climatic conditions are good, it will be installed by late May, the report added.

The second jacket related to the Forouzan oil field development project will be sent to the offshore field within the next few weeks.

The main goal of the Forouzan oil field development project is to extract more than 300 million barrels of crude oil in the next 25 years.

The field will also yield about 250 million cubic feet per day of natural gas which will be transferred to Kharg Island via an undersea pipeline.

Forouzan oil field, in the Persian Gulf, is shared with Saudi Arabia. Extraction of oil from the field started in the early 1970s and the field produced about 550 million barrels of oil by the end of 2002.

The field experienced its peak production in late 1978 when it produced 180,000 barrels per day of crude oil.

The development of Forouzan oil field is a priority project for Iran's Oil Ministry and the field is expected to yield 5,000-10,000 barrels per day of crude oil by the middle of the next Iranian calendar year (starts March 20, 2013).

Forouzan oil field is located 100 kilometers southwest of Kharg Island. It was discovered in 1966 with estimated in-place reserves of 2.309 billion barrels of crude. The field is known as Marjan in Saudi Arabia.

Iran shares oil and gas fields with most of its neighbors in the Persian Gulf region as well as with Turkmenistan in the Caspian Sea.

Energy officials in Tehran said in July 2011 that as much as 35 percent of the country's energy development budget will go towards the development of joint oil and gas fields.

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