President Hassan Rouhani on Monday will officially inaugurate phases 15 and 16 of South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf region.
The two phases will bring in around $20 million in revenues per day once fully operational. The launch of the two phases is an integral part of Iran's ambition to raise gas production capacity to 1 billion cubic meters per day in two years and to 1.2 bcm/d by 2020.
Hailed as "the most Iranian phases" of South Pars, they are aimed at producing more than 50 million cubic meters of gas and 80,000 barrels of gas condensate per day as well as 400 tons of sulfur, 1 million tons of ethane as feedstock and more than 1 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually, Mehr News Agency reported. The last major launch of a South Pars phase goes back to March 2015, when Rouhani inaugurated Phase 12, the biggest Iranian gas project in history.
The phase has the capacity to produce 75 million cubic meters of natural gas and 120,000 barrels of gas condensates per day.
Iran sits on the world’s largest oil and natural gas reserves, holding 158 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and 34 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves.
South Pars is the world’s largest gas field shared by 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.
Iran is currently lagging behind Qatar in terms of extraction from the South Pars, with the tiny Arab neighbor reportedly drawing 1.6 times faster from the joint field.
