TEHRAN – The drilling operations have been started in Phase 11 of Iran’s giant South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf waters, the operator of the phase’s development project said.

According to Mohsen Rezaei, the offshore drilling rig was settled at the mentioned phase’s SPD-11B platform and the drilling operations for temporary wells of this phase were started on Saturday, Shana reported.

The official noted that the said drilling rig, belonging to Mapna Drilling Company, is going to dig 12 wells in the mentioned phase for extracting about one billion cubic feet of gas per day. 

The drilling operations will be carried out in two stages, the official said.

“In the first phase, by drilling and completing five descriptive-development wells and installing the SPD11B platform, the initial production capacity of this phase will reach 500 million cubic feet per day, then seven more development wells will be drilled in the second stage,” he added.

Engineering and technical monitoring and supervision of all the mentioned operations will be carried out by Iranian experts and engineers.

Development of the South Pars phase 11 was officially started in May after several years of hiatus due to various financial and technical issues.

In November 2016, Iran signed a $4.8 billion agreement with a consortium including France’s Total, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Petropars, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) on development of phase 11, however Total and CNPCI, 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 South Pars phase 11 project will have a production capacity of 2 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.

South Pars 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.

EF/MA