Offshore drilling operations in the South Pars Gas Field Phase 11 off the Persian Gulf will start soon, the head of Mapna Drilling Company, a subsidiary of Mapna Group—Iran's top engineering and energy firm—said.
“The drilling rig MD-1 is moving towards SP 11 location near the Iran-Qatar sea border in the Persian Gulf and work is expected to commence in three days,” Fazel Jamalzadeh was quoted as saying by ISNA.
Drilling will be carried out in two phases, he said, and added that the first phase entails digging four horizontal and one vertical well, all of which will be connected to the first wellhead jacket installed recently.
“Installation of the first wellhead jacket of SP 11 is over and 12 wells will be drilled in two phases.”
The jacket of Platform B hauled from Qeshm Island reached its destination 135 km off Asalouyeh coast in August, and the installation process was completed in two months
This was the first of two jackets of Phase 11, which allows drilling 12 wells near the Iran-Qatar sea border.
“Phase 11 is the only one among the total 24 phases of South Pars that has been delayed,” he noted.
When fully operational, the phase will produce 56.6 million cubic meters of gas per day plus 75,000 barrels of gas condensate. Gas will be transferred to onshore refineries in Asalouyeh and Kangan in Bushehr Province.
The National Iranian Oil Company signed a contract for developing Phase 11 with an international consortium of France’s Total, China’s CNPCI and Iran’s Petropars in July 2017. However, the foreign companies pulled out after the US announced new economic sanctions in 2018.
The consortium reportedly spent $100 million on the project, prior to Total and CNPC’s exit. The Tehran-based oil giant, Petropars, is now in charge of the $4b project.
“South Pars offshore section will be completed in 2021,” Jamalzadeh said, adding that Iran currently extracts 700 million cubic meters of gas from the field.
Despite the fact that Donald Trump’s hostile Iran policy, soon after he won a highly contested presidential election in 2016 and packed with extremely hostile economic sanctions, plus the coronavirus disrupted SP projects, work was never suspended.
At the weekend Iran’s confirmed Covid-19 cases surpassed 600,000 with 35,000 deaths.
The giant gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar, spreads over 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran’s territorial waters and the rest in Qatari waters.
Huge Reserves
The field is estimated to hold 14 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas reserves plus 18 billion barrels of recoverable liquefied natural gas reserves in Iranian waters.
More than $80 billion has been invested in the field since 2001 when the first well was drilled.
South Pars constitutes 96% of liquefied petroleum gas, 100% of ethane and 55% of sulfur produced in Iran. Other products (condensates, natural gas and depravities) worth $270 billion were extracted in 18 years.
Established in 2009, Mapna Drilling Company is involved in different projects ranging from implementation of offshore/onshore projects to providing drilling services in fields of engineering, purchase, drilling, and subsidiary services.
Owning drilling rigs, the firm undertakes engineering and supervisory services and procurement of equipment and machinery for onshore and offshore drilling.
