The first phase of North Azadegan Oilfield will start producing 75,000 barrels per day in the near future, the field's development director said.
Announcing the completion of the first phase, Keramat Behbahani added that the gas sector is undergoing tests and its development phase will soon be launched, Shana reported.
"After the completion of the infrastructure installment at the oilfield, a trial production phase will be started, which takes 21 to 28 days of oil production," he said.
Behbahani noted that if this phase is successful and faces no problem, the full development plan of North Azadegan Oilfield will be ready to produce 75,000 barrels of oil each day.
Known as Iran’s biggest and the world's third largest oilfield, Azadegan is located in the southwestern Khuzestan Province. The oilfield is divided into northern and southern sections on the Iranian side, with oil-in-place reserves of about 33.2 billion barrels, of which 6 billion barrels are deemed recoverable. It is the biggest oilfield discovered in Iran in the last 30 years.
North Azadegan Oilfield is one of the fields shared by Iran with the neighboring Iraq, whose oil-in-place reserves are estimated at 5.6 billion barrels. Its development plan comprises two phases, each aimed at producing 75,000 barrels a day upon completion.
Earlier, new Iraqi ambassador in Tehran, Rajeh Saber Abboud al-Mousavi, said Iran and Iraq are planning to develop partnership in the jointly-owned field.
Iraq started producing 210,000 barrels per day from the field in April 2014. The field, called Majnoon on the Iraqi side, has been awarded to a consortium led by the Royal Dutch Shell, with a planned production plateau of 1.8 million bpd.
This is while the National Iranian Oil Company signed a $2.5 billion contract with the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation in 2009, which was ultimately annulled in May 2014 due to repeated delays by CNPC. Noting that tests for laying a pipeline in North Azadegan is currently underway, Behbahani said it will soon become operational.
Iran unveiled 52 oil and natural gas projects for international companies in a major conference in Tehran last month, but North Azadegan was among a trio of projects eliminated from the list of investment opportunities for foreign contractors.
