TEHRAN – Head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said on Thursday that developing the country’s North Pars gas field is going to add 100 million cubic meters (mcm) to Iran’s natural gas output, the portal of the Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) reported.

Speaking in a meeting with the members of the Parliament’s Energy Committee, Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr stated that descriptive studies on the field have been started by POGC with the approval of the board of directors of the National Iranian Oil Company, adding: “The development of the North Pars field can help raise the level of employment, and we are looking to conduct a spatial planning project under the framework of this $4-billion project.”

According to Khojasteh-Mehr, NIOC needs over four billion dollars of investment to develop North Pars gas fields.

The official further noted that since the beginning of the development of South Pars, 81 billion dollars have been invested and to continue benefiting from the results of this development more investment is still required.

He also pointed to the need for maintaining the current level of production at the South Pars gas field and noted: “for a sustained production and extraction of these reserves, we must invest in all areas.”

Noting that several projects have been defined in line with the new missions of the National Iranian Oil Company, the official said: "The country's increasing need for natural gas and the exports of the product requires us to access new underground resources."

North Pars gas field is one of the biggest independent gas fields in the world. This field which was discovered in 1967 is located some 120 kilometers southeast of Bushehr province in the Persian Gulf.

In 1963, exploration activities started in this field with carrying out seismic tests and the first exploration well was completed in 1967. The total volume of the gas in place of this field is about 1.69 billion cubic meters.

EF/MA