TEHRAN- The development project of Azar Oilfield will accelerate through securing required finance from Iran’s National Development Fund (NDP), according to Keyvan Yarahmadi, the director of project.

The official said the early oil production of 30,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the field is planned to be started in the next Iranian calendar year (which will begin on March 20, 2016), the Shana News agency reported on Monday.

Ten wells should be drilled to materialize the objective of early production from the oilfield, Yarahmadi added.

Azar is an oilfield in Iran’s Anaran block.  Iran shares Azar with Iraq which calls it Badra.  The field holds a total of 2.5 billion barrels of in-situ deposit. Recoverable reserves on both sides total 400 million barrels.
 
Russia’s largest private oil firm Lukoil and Norway's Statoil started developing the Anaran block in 2003 but pulled out in 2011 when the U.S. and Europeans intensified sanctions on Iran. 

Lukoil and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) officials have held negotiations about the Russian company’s resumption of the project to develop the Azar field.    

Iran, once OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, is seeking to clear space for its gradual return to the market after lifting of sanctions. 

Western sanctions have cut Iran’s oil output to 2.7 million bpd from 3.9 million bpd. 

In the sixth international seminar of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which was held in Vienna on June 3 and 4, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said Iran’s oil production could be lifted by one million bpd within half a year of Western sanctions being lifted.   

With holding 157 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves, Iran possesses the world’s fourth largest crude oil reserves. 
 
MA