TEHRAN - The Managing Director of Petropars Company, which is in charge of developing the phase 11 of Iran’s South Pars gas field, said drilling operations over five wells in the offshore phase would begin by late June.

“Due to the coronavirus outbreak in the past few months loading of the jacket to South Pars Phase 11 project was delayed but the operations are going to be started by early summer (spring ends on June 20),” Hamidreza Masoudi told Shana.

The official noted that the construction of the jacket was completed and preparations were underway for loading it.

Earlier this month, the managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), which is in charge of developing the South Pars gas field, announced that the phase 11 jacket was going to be installed in the Persian Gulf in near future.

“The Phase 11 jacket will be installed in the early months of the current [Iranian calendar] year (started March 20, 2020),” Mohammad Meshkinfam said.

Petropars is developing phase 11 of South Pars which was initially intended to be developed by a consortium of Total, CNPC, and Petropars, but the first two companies pulled out of the project after imposition of sanctions on Iran by the U.S.

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

The 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.

The Islamic Republic of Iran will continue the implementation of important oil projects including the development of joint oil and gas fields in the current Iranian year.

Being among the world’s top four countries that have the largest proven deposit of crude oil and natural gas, Iran shares the broad offshore field with Qatar in the southern Iranian region of the Persian Gulf.

EF/MA