TEHRAN – The first phase of an oil transmission project which is going to send the oil from West Karoun fields in southwest Iran to the country’s export terminals was officially launched in a ceremony on Thursday.

The ceremony was attended by senior officials from the Oil Ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company, including Farokh Alikhani, the NIOC’s deputy director of production affairs, Touraj Dehqani, the managing director of Iran's Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC).

As reported, the mentioned transmission line in the first phase has the capacity to transfer 460,000 barrels of heavy crude oil as well as 254,000 barrels of light crude on a daily basis.

The transmission route in this project is going to send oil from the West Karun pumping station to a middle station, which is Omidieh pumping station, and then to the Bahregan and Jask terminals as the final destinations.

The mentioned project includes operations for transferring oil from North Azadegan, South Azadegan, Yadavaran, and Darkhovin to West Karun Pumping station, in addition to transferring North Yaran oil to Jofair exploitation unit and then to the West Karun station.

With the development of Phase 2 of this project, which is currently underway, the capacity of the mentioned transmission line is going to increase to more than one million barrels per day.

West Karoun oilfields, which Iran shares with Iraq at the western part of Iran’s southwestern region of Karoun, include five major fields namely North Azadegan, South Azadegan, North Yaran, South Yaran, and Yadavaran.

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.

With the fields fully operational, their output could add 1.2 million bpd to the country’s oil production capacity.

EF/MA