TEHRAN – Phase 11 of Iran’s giant South Pars gas field development project is expected to produce 14 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas on a daily basis by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2023), an official with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said.

Karim Zobeidi, NIOC's director of corporate planning, said one of the most important concerns of the Oil Ministry is the proper supply of gas during the cold season, IRNA reported.

Pointing out that by the end of the current Iranian calendar year the production from the first phase of South Azadegan oil field should also reach 220,000 barrels per day, Zobeidi added: “Increasing production from the joint oil fields of West Karun region is a priority for the thirteenth government.”

“In Phase 14 of South Pars, the remaining three trains of the phase’s refinery will be commissioned this year,” he said.

Phases 22 to 24 of South Pars are also going to go fully operational, according to the official.

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 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 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.

Back in January, the managing director of Petropars Company had announced the implementation of two new contracts as of December 22, 2021, to accelerate the development of the mentioned phase.

According to Hamid-Reza Masoudi, the mentioned deals were concerned with the construction of an off-shore pipeline as well as the installation of the phase’s SDP11B platform.

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