South Pars Phase 1 oil layer development project has made 70% progress, deputy managing director for comparative planning at the National Iranian Oil Company said on Monday.
"Plans have been made to expedite the joint field's development by raising much-needed finances and obtaining legal licenses," Moshtaq-Ali Gohari was quoted as saying by Shana.
The official underscored the importance of completing drilling operations at seven oil wells.
Pointing to construction of the floating production, storage and offloading unit with the help of domestic and foreign companies, Gohari added, "The FPSO unit will go on stream next year. Upon the FPSO unit's installation, the oilfield is projected to become fully operational in mid-2016."
According to reports, more than $350 million have been invested in the development project so far, and as soon as the first phase is completed, the implementation of the second phase will top the Oil Ministry's priority to guarantee the rise in production.
The development project of the South Pars oil layer will be carried out in two phases. In April, director of the South Pars oil layer project, Alireza Zeighami, stated that seven wells had been spud-drilled in the oil layer, and 20,000 to 35,000 barrels of oil are expected to be recovered in the first phase.
"After assessing the progress and studying the field's production behavior, the second phase will also be launched if the project shows economic promise," he added.
South Pars is the world's largest gas field, shared between Iran and Qatar, covering an area of 3,700 square kilometers of Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. It adjoins Qatar’s North Field, which measures 6,000 square kilometers. It is estimated to hold 7 billion barrels of oil.
However, Iran is lagging behind Qatar in exploiting oil from the Persian Gulf reserves due to a lack of advanced technology and sufficient budget. Add to that the more difficult task of reaching the deep underwater oil layers in the South Pars compared to drawing natural gas from the region's hydrocarbon reserves.
SP Gas Field has a capacity of producing 820 million cubic meters and 1 mcm of gas condensates per day.
