The crude production of National Iranian South Oil Company, the country’s largest oil production company, has reached its pre-sanctions level, NISOC’s managing director said on Monday.
“NISOC’s share of Iran’s total oil exports is currently over 1.6 million barrels a day,” Shana quoted Bijan Alipour as saying, adding that the company accounts for 2.9 million barrels of the country’s daily oil output.
NISOC is a government-owned corporation affiliated to the Oil Ministry and a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company.
It accounts for 83% of Iran’s crude output and 16% of the country’s natural gas production. It is in charge of onshore oilfields in southern Iran, including Azadegan, Yadavaran, Ahvaz, Gachsaran, Maroun and Aqajari, and focuses on onshore upstream activity in the province of Khuzestan.
According to the official, NISOC has, after facing years of sanctions, realized the envisaged sustainable oil production while it deploys aging installations, machinery and dilapidated pipelines.
“Winning back the company’s production level, which required the repeated repair of infrastructures, has resulted from the efforts of NISOC’s workforce in the past one and a half year,” he said.
Alipour noted that more than 17,000 engineering and oil well activities, over 600 operations for overhauling oil and gas refining equipments and about 280 repairs of rotating machines have been undertaken by the company over the period.
“As Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and National Iranian Oil Company’s former managing director, Rokneddin Javadi, earlier announced, Iran raised its daily oil output by more than 900,000 barrels in less than six months, which is an unprecedented record,” he said.
NISOC’s chief executive believes that oil production from the southern parts of Iran can continue for at least 70 years, as he earlier told Mehr News agency.
However, the production rate can increase, provided modern enhanced oil recovery methods are applied.
Alipour also said that to the surprise of international media and analysts, the country has managed to regain its oil market share it ceded to rival producers in the 13-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in the shortest possible time.
Iran wants to raise oil production capacity to 4.7 million barrels a day under a five-year plan.
According to data by the Iranian Oil Terminals Company, 25-30% of oil export hike is going to Iran’s traditional buyers–Japan, China, South Korea, Turkey and India—and the rest are destined for new markets.
