The total production of Azar Oilfield, which Iran shares with Iraq, has reached 50 million barrels in five years, said the managing director of Sarvak Azar Engineering and Development Company, the Iranian developer of the field.
“The development of Azar Oilfield in Ilam Province is technically complicated, but it has been accomplished with the help of Iranian contractors,” Majid Habibi was quoted as saying by IRNA.
“Iranian experts and engineers have carried out all the processes to develop the field while the other side of the field in Iraq is being developed by companies from Russia, the United States and South Korea,” he said.
“Azar is one of the most complex oilfields in the Middle East. Daily production from the field now stands at 42,000 barrels.”
Habibi said for developing the field, Sarvak Azar Engineering and Development Company won the gold medal in IPMA Global Award for Project Excellence Management.
“It was the first time an Iranian company won such an award in the international arena,” he added.
The Global Project Excellence Award is held annually by the IPMA International Institute in different parts of the world.
Iranian experts and engineers have carried out all the processes to develop the field while the other side of the field in Iraq is being developed by companies from Russia, the United States and South Korea
The Oil Ministry has invested around $10 billion on the development of Azar Oilfield to increase the output from the field and plans to invest another $4 billion in the next five years to develop the field along with other oilfields and energy projects in the western province.
When all the development projects related to the oilfields are complete, the crude oil output capacity of the province is expected to reach 330,000 barrels per day.
Ilam accounts for about 3% of the country's oil and gas reserves, and the Oil Ministry plans to invest $2 billion in the province’s upstream oil sector, especially on the development of Azar Oilfield.
Oil extraction from the field started in 2017 with a daily production of 15,000 barrels and reached 30,000 barrels a year later.
Stretching over 400 square kilometers, Azar Oilfield is shared with Iraq, where it is known as Badra. It is located 20 kilometers from the city of Mehran in Ilam in the Anaran exploration block.
Azar holds 2.5 billion barrels of in-place oil, of which 400 million barrels can be extracted. It is one of the six fields owned jointly with Iraq, along with Dehloran, West Paydar, Naft-Shahr, Azadegan and Yadavaran.
Although Iran’s oil industry has been hit by US sanctions since mid-2018, which reduced Iran’s oil exports to record lows, the country has continued to increase production in the hope that the siege will be lifted soon.
The former US government imposed economic sanctions in August 2018, targeted key industrial, oil, banking and insurance sectors. In the May of that year, the US quit the landmark 2015 nuclear deal Iran had signed with six world powers.
In November 2018, Washington imposed the so-called “maximum pressure” policy to intensify economic pressure.
However, Iran has not stopped oil exploration, development and capacity building under the economic war, as the country prepares for the post-sanctions era when it seeks to reach a maximum production of 4 million bpd. The current output is about 2.5 million bpd.
