Iran’s natural gas output capacity will increase by at least 50% to reach 1.5 billion cubic meters per day by 2030, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company said.
“In addition to the completion of Phase 11, we have a number of compensatory schemes, the most important of which is to build gas booster stations to address the decline in production from the South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf,” Mohsen Khojastehmehr was also quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry’s news agency Shana.
The initial pressure of the South Pars gas reservoir in the Kangan and Dalan layers, which are located at a depth of 3,000 meters in the Persian Gulf, has decreased from about 5,200 PSI to 3,500 PSI in the past 20 According to the NIOC chief, the project to design offshore compressor stations has been completed and a pilot plan to produce the first prototype will start soon.
“The installation of offshore compressor stations in SP is the most effective approach to control gas pressure reduction,” he said.
Khojastehmehr noted that major domestic companies, including Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, an engineering company affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran's top engineering and energy company MAPNA Group, the energy company Petropars, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, and Iran Marine Industrial Company or SADRA, have said that they are able to build and install the super structures and NIOC is negotiating with them.
EPC Contract
As soon as the pilot plan to make booster stations yields positive results, an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract will be concluded with a domestic firm, Khojastehmehr announced.
The 20,000-ton platforms, which are necessary to maintain gas pressure, will be unrivaled in the region and there are barely a few of its kind in the world. One was constructed in Australia with the help of the French energy company Total.
Total SA was to provide NIOC with the knowhow to build the structures, but shied away after US President Donald Trump walked away from the historic 2015 Iran nuclear deal last summer and reimposed tough sanctions on the oil and other key industries.
Reservoir pressure in SP was higher when the first contract for the development of the giant field was signed years ago, he recalled.
Qatar's excessive gas extraction from the field has reduced the pressure to a great extent and further lowering of pressure will affect production from the operating platforms in the near future.
Hence, at least 20 compressor stations are needed in South Pars Gas Field over six years.
SP Phase 11
According to the NIOC chief, the development of SP Phase 11 is underway and the phase will soon become operational.
“The drilling of the last four wells in the phase is in the final stages and after the project’s subsea pipe-laying operations are completed, gas extraction will begin in the near future,” he added.
Phase 11 is the only one among the 24 phases of the joint field in the Persian Gulf, which has not been developed yet. Iran shares the field with Qatar.
The Phase 11 development project included the construction and installation of the jackets and topsides of the phase, drilling 12 wells and laying 115-km-long 32-inch pipelines to transfer mono-ethylene glycol and liquefied natural gas to onshore plants for processing.
About 12,000 meters of drilling operations to dig four production wells have been carried out and they are estimated to reach 15,000 meters upon completion.
An estimated 14 million cubic meters of natural gas per day will be extracted from the phase initially. A total of $15 million have been invested in the phase.
With an estimated 14.2 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves in place plus 18 billion barrels of gas condensate, the Iranian side of the field accounts for 40% of Iran’s total estimated 33.8 tcm of gas reserves and 60% of its gas production.
Iran holds the world’s second largest gas reserves after Russia. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, Iran has 34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, or 18% of the world’s proven reserves.
