Pars Oil and Gas Company is carrying out exploration in the Persian Gulf for new oil and gas fields.
“Out of four exploratory operations planned till today, two have finished their initial stages and a light oilfield called Yalda has been discovered,” Mohammad Meshkinfam, managing director of POGC, said.
Yalda Oilfield is located 30 kilometers east of the South Pars Gas Field in southern Iran, ISNA reported.
The proximity to South Pars has many advantages and helps accelerate the process of starting production from the oilfield.
Meshkinfam said a new gas field has been discovered to the north of South Pars which, according to initial estimates, has a natural gas capacity of about 1 trillion cubic meters.
Besides discovering new fields, POGC is also implementing a pressure boosting project in the South Pars Gas Field, which upon completion, will increase the production capacity of the field by 100 million cubic meters.
POGC, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, has conducted comprehensive studies to locate the best area for digging new wells to make up for pressure reduction in the gas field that will start from 2025 and reduce gas production to as low as 400 million cubic meters in 2032, down 100% compared to the present levels.
Close to 350 wells in SP are acidized and perforated regularly to keep production as high as possible, but this cannot continue for long and the drilling of new wells is inevitable.
A pressure boosting project is underway at the South Pars Gas Field, which upon completion, will increase the production capacity of the field by a total of 100 million cubic meters
Output from the giant field is now 700 million cubic meters per day and will reach 1.2 billion cubic meters per day by 2024 and then a downtrend would begin.
The installation of offshore compressor stations in the field is the only long-term viable option to control pressure reduction.
By 2025, the pressure is expected to decline by 28 mcm per year unless special platforms and compressors are installed.
Meshkinfam said an estimated $30 billion are needed to develop and maintain the SP over the next 20 years.
South Pars, the world's largest proven offshore natural gas reservoir in the Persian Gulf, contains at least 12 trillion cubic meters of gas, of which 2 tcm have been extracted by Iran in the past 18 years. Of the total reserves, close to 9 tcm are extractable.
About $80 billion have been invested to develop SP since 2002 when the field’s daily output was 32 million cubic meters. The field then accounted for less than 10% of Iran’s gas requirements but now it accounts for 80% of Iran’s gas need and the decline in output will create insurmountable problems for households, industries and thermal power stations.
The huge gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar, covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which (South Pars) are in Iran’s territorial waters and the rest (North Dome) is in Qatari waters. It is estimated to contain large deposits of natural gas, accounting for 8% of the world’s known reserves and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensates.
South Pars has 24 phases, all of which, except Phase 11, are operational. The mega project includes 39 offshore platforms.
