TEHRAN - Iranian Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC) and Petropars Group signed a deal on Monday for completing the development of South Azadegan oilfield as well as constructing a Central Treatment Export Plant (CTEP) with a capacity of 320,000 barrels per day (bpd) at the field.

The deal, worth $961 millionو plus 11.83 trillion rials (about $281.66 million), was signed by PEDEC Managing Director Touraj Dehqani and Petropars CEO Hamidreza Mahmoudi at the presence of Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, Shana reported.

As reported, the deal is aimed at increasing the field’s production capacity to 320,000 bpd over a 30-month period.

Under the framework of the deal, the contractor is obliged to drill 35 wells, install 50 downhole ESP pumps, complete two intermediate separation plants, construct 328 km of flow pipelines, 45 km of communication pipelines and 65 km of gas and crude oil transmission pipelines from the CTEP to the West Karoun Pumping House and to the NGL 3200 plant.

The two sides also signed a nearly $300 million contract for the construction of South Azadegan’s CTEP which is going to be the country’s biggest upstream treatment plant.

Speaking on the signing ceremony, Zanganeh underlined the importance of Azadegan oil field for the country’s oil industry and noted that improving the field’s recovery factor by 10 percent is going to increase the field’s output by 2.7 billion barrels which means a $1-trillion increase in the country’s future oil revenues.

South Azadegan is one of the five major oilfields Iran shares with Iraq at the western part of Iran’s southwestern region of Karoun, known as West Karoun fields.

West Karoun holds great importance for the country’s oil industry since according to the latest studies, its in-situ deposit is estimated to be 67 billion barrels containing both light and heavy crude oils, and therefore it could have a big impact on Iran’s oil output increases in the future.

Having an estimated 67 billion barrels of in-situ oil, West Karoun fields definitely deserve the spotlight which has been put on them recently.

EF/MA