BANDAR ABBAS- Platform 17B of Iran’s South Pars gas field (in the Persian Gulf), which was loaded at Bandar Abbas yard on Tuesday, will produce 500 million cubic feet (around 14.5 million cubic meters) of gas per day.

The 2,300-ton structure, the last platform of South Pars phases 17 and 18 of development, is scheduled to be installed on its designated offshore spot on November 10, and once starting operation it will complete development of the mentioned phases.

Phases 17 and 18 are set to produce 56.6 million cubic meters of sweet gas, 75,000 barrels of gas condensate and 400 tons of sulfur per day in addition to one million tons of ethane and 1.05 million tons of propane and butane per annum.

South Pars gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, 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.

 ‘70% Iranian equipment used in platform 17B’

Some 70 percent of the equipment applied for constructing platform 17B have been domestically manufactured and just those equipment that manufacturing them required some high technology have been imported, Mohammad Meshkinfam, the managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) told the Tehran Times in a press conference in Bandar Abbas on Tuesday after loading the platform.

He also put the average application of domestically manufactured equipment in development of South Pars at 60 percent.

The official further said that construction of platform 17B has taken 31 months and announced that the platform will start operation within 45 days after being installed.

Meshkinfam put the cost of constructing each platform of South Pars gas field at $150 million.

 ‘$85b required for development of South Pars’

Elsewhere in his remarks, the POGC managing director said that completing all development phases of South Pars, except for phase 11, requires $81 billion investment and $4 billion is required for development of phase 11.

He also announced that by the next five years pressure drop control is necessary to be launched in South Pars, “In this regard, such control will be launched first in phase 11 and then it will be applied in the other phases.”

 ‘Iran to reach Qatar by March 2017’

Meshkinfam also announced that Iran’s production of gas from South Pars will reach 500 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) by the end of autumn and it will reach 540 mcm/d by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2017).

Qatar’s production from the field is 600 mcm/d and given the shut downs in Qataris operations, Iran’s output from the joint field will equal that of Qatar by the end of current calendar year, the official announced, while saying that if the objective won’t achieved by the yearend, it will surely come true in the next spring.

 ‘South Pars to yield 30,000bpd of oil’

Addressing the same press conference, Gholamreza Manouchehri, the deputy managing director of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) for development and engineering affairs, said that Iranian Oil Ministry is determined to start production of 30,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from South Pars field (which has also oil deposit) by the end of the current calendar year.

The official also said that Iran plans to raise the figure to 200,000 bpd by the next 20 years.

He said the project for production of oil from South Pars will be offered on tender to the foreign companies in the framework of Iran’s new model of oil contracts known as IPC (Integrated Petroleum Contact).

MA/MG