About 8,000 meters of drilling operations have been carried out at Phase 11 of South Pars Gas Field, managing director of Petropars Group said.
“The first section of drilling operations in the phase includes the drilling of four production wells,” Hamidreza Masoudi was also quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry’s news agency Shana.
The drilling estimated for the four wells is 15,000 meters, more than half of which have been completed, he added.
Phase 11 is the only one among the 24 phases of the giant joint field in the Persian Gulf, which has not been developed yet. Iran shares the field with Qatar.
The Phase 11 development project includes the construction and installation of the jacket and topside of the phase, drilling 12 wells and laying 32-inch pipes on the seabed from the phase’s platform to onshore facilities.
The installation of the first wellhead jacket was completed last December. The jacket of Platform B hauled from Qeshm Island reached its destination 135 km off the Asalouyeh coast of Bushehr Province in October, and the installation process was completed in two months. This was the first of two jackets of Phase 11, which calls for drilling 12 wells near the Iran-Qatar maritime border.
An estimated 14 million cubic meters of natural gas per day will be extracted from the phase by the end of the current Iranian year (March 2021-22).
Emphasizing the need to start early production from the phase, Masoudi said, “The developers of the pipelines have been selected and pipe-laying operations will begin after the approval of the National Iranian Oil Company.”
Petropars Group, which is in charge of developing the phase, has been using parts and equipment produced by Iranian manufacturers and the services of domestic companies in various sectors, as it aims to enhance the country's technical and engineering capabilities, he added.
French Total S.A. had signed a $5 billion agreement in 2016 to develop SP Phase 11 as the head of a consortium that included China National Petroleum Corporation and Petropars.
After canceling the agreement to develop the field due to the mounting US pressure and new sanctions that forced international firms to walk away from Iran in 2018, the French energy company submitted the project's documents to its partner, CNPC. However, as the Chinese company did not take any measurers to develop the phase, Petropars started to work on the field relying on domestic experts and knowhow.
Masoudi said $15 million have been invested and an additional $70 million are needed to complete the first phase of the project by early next year.
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 giant gas field is spreads over 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran’s territorial waters and the rest in Qatari waters.
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 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, Iran has 34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, or 18% of the world’s proven reserves.
Petropars was founded in 1998 to help develop the vast energy resources and is one of the leading contractors of upstream oil and gas projects. It has recently been tasked with the development of the giant South Azadegan Oilfield in Khuzestan Province and Belal Gas Field off the Persian Gulf.
