TEHRAN- The managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) called the implementation of the South Pars phase 11 development project a unique task.

Making the remarks in a press conference on Wednesday, Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr emphasized that phase 11 implementation is one of the strategic objectives of the country.

“We are ready to start production in this phase at the present, and we will announce the official beginning of production as soon as possible”, the official announced.

When fully developed, the South Pars Phase 11 will have a production capacity of two billion cubic feet per day or 370,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The produced gas will be fed into Iran's gas network.

Iran had previously awarded the development of the phase 11 project to a consortium comprised of France’s Total, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), and Petropars which is a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), however, Total and CNPC pulled out of the project in 2019 due to the U.S. sanctions.

Currently, Petropars is developing the phase 11 project after its partners left the contract.

The drilling operation for the first well of mentioned phase was officially started in December 2020. In the early production stage, the output of this phase will reach 500 million cubic feet (equivalent to 14 million cubic meters) per day.

South Pars field, which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, is the world’s largest gas field, covering an area of 3,700 square kilometers of Iran’s territorial waters.

The giant field is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate. The field is divided into 24 standard phases.

Oil export doubled

Elsewhere in his remarks, the NIOC managing director said that Iran’s oil export has doubled in the current government’s incumbency.

He said that 150,000 barrels of oil will be added to the country’s oil export by the next week, and another 100,000 barrels will be added by the end of the first half of the current [Iranian calendar] year (September 22).

According to the data presented at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Annual Statistical Bulletin 2023, in late July, Iran's oil income in 2022 reached $42.6 billion, which is $1.5 billion more than the country’s oil revenues in the first year of the implementation of the nuclear deal (2016) when the figure was $41.1 billion.

The increase in Iran's oil exports to 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd) at the end of 2022, according to Kepler's statistics, and the increase in oil prices are among the reasons for Iran's oil income in the mentioned year.

Iran has been increasing its oil production and exports over the past few years despite the U.S. sanctions.

Back in June, Bloomberg reported that the production and export of Iranian oil in 2023 have reached record highs since the country came under U.S. sanctions more than five years ago.

The report cited energy analysts as saying that Iran’s oil exports have surged to the highest level since the U.S. unilaterally re-imposed sanctions on the country in 2018.