Italian oil and gas company Eni has expressed willingness to develop the third phase of Darkhovein Oilfield in south Iran, a deputy oil minister said on Saturday.
"Although Eni has shown interest in the project, no technical negotiations have been held over the details," Rokneddin Javadi was quoted as saying by Shana.
According to Javadi, foreign companies have expressed readiness to cooperate in the development of oil and gas fields, although Iran has made no pledges to cooperate with them as the transfer of knowhow is as important as the project itself and not every company seems to be willing to provide Iran with state-of-the-art technology.
"Plans have been made to complete the third phase of Darkhovein Oilfield to increase daily output to 70,000 barrels," Abdolreza Haji-Hosseinnejad, managing director of Petroleum Engineering and Development Company, said.
Haji-Hosseinnejad noted that the project needs $1.3 billion in investment.
Darkhovein's phases 1 and 2 were already completed by Eni and NIOC. To develop the first and second phases of the field, 28 wells were drilled, including 23 for production, four for injecting gas and one for injecting wastewater.
The oilfield is located 30 kilometers north of Khorramshahr. It is estimated to hold around 5.2 billion barrels of oil, of which 1.3 billion barrels are recoverable. The field's output is to reach 240,000 barrels per day by the next five years.
Development of phase one commenced in 2005 with $1.3 billion investment. Phase 2 was completed in cooperation with Eni in 2011, increasing the field's output by 160,000 bpd.
The Italian giant was to develop Phase 3 of the Darkhovein field in Khuzestan Province and Phase 19 of South Pars, but the US and EU sanctions forced the Italian major, along with many of its European counterparts, to halt operations and leave.
According to PEDEC managing director, Eni has officially contacted NIOC to invest in the third phase.
Eni had always implemented the most advanced technologies in all of its projects in Iran.
Innovation is key to Eni’s operations, which helps the company cut production costs.
The Italian firm has recently developed a deepwater drilling technology that allows it to significantly reduce the exploration and extraction costs at offshore oil and gas wells.
