TEHRAN - The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and domestic companies will sign contracts worth $15 billion today/tomorrow for the development of six phases of the South Pars gas field.

Phases 13, 14, 19, 22, 23, and 24 are to be transferred to the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization (IDRO), Petropars, and an all-Iranian consortium, the SHANA news agency reported.
NIOC Managing Director Ahmad Qalebani and Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi will attend the signing ceremony.
In April, Mirkazemi stated that all phases of the South Pars gas field will come on stream by 2015.
According to Iran's Fifth Five-Year Socio-Economic Development Plan (2010-2015), $25 billion should be invested annually in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, the Mehr News Agency quoted Mirkazemi as saying.
The development of oil and gas fields which are shared with Persian Gulf states, Iraq, and Turkmenistan is a priority of the Oil Ministry, he added.
He went on to say that Iran’s oil production capacity is projected to rise above 5 million barrels per day and gas production is expected to hit 900 million cubic meters per day.
The South Pars field is a gas condensate field located in the Persian Gulf. It is the world’s largest gas field and is shared by Iran and Qatar. According to the International Energy Agency, the field holds an estimated 50.97 trillion cubic meters (1800 trillion cubic feet) of in-situ gas and some 50 billion barrels of condensates.
Iran holds has the world’s second-largest reserves of natural gas and the third-largest reserves of oil.