Following the oil ministry's declared aim to increase gas production by 100 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d), development operations of some phases of South Pars field are being conducted with priority.
Developing five phases of South Pars including phases 12, 15 to 18, which are jointly owned by Iran and Qatar, are of greater importance compared to other phases.
The development of phase 12 is preceding the other aforementioned phases. Phase 12 consists of platforms A, B and C; and being the field's biggest phase, it has a production capacity of 75mcm/d.
Gas and gas condensate production from platform A started in February, and the first gas condensate consignment was loaded early July.
With platforms B and coming on stream, together with the production capacity of platform A, Iran's gas production will increase by 65mcm/d.
Shaham Anousheh, director of the Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company (IOEC) for South Pars phase 12, said production at full capacity will begin by December.
“The platform will reach its full production capacity five days after it becomes operational,” he said.
Platform C will be launched 15 days after platform B, with an estimated production capacity of 25mcm/d. Anousheh said 90 percent of hook-up operations are completed, and in one month the figure will improve by another five percent.
The project’s installation and launch in its entirety was undertaken by Iranian engineers and technicians.
Phase 22
One of the measures to increase production from joint South Pars field is the pipe laying operations of phase 22.
Mohammad Sadegh Hedayat, the IOEC director for phase 22, said the 100 km pipe laying operations of phase 22 by C-master vessel started in early July, and will be completed next week.
The C-master vessel is laying approximately 2 km of pipe a day, and it has laid more than 2000 km of pipelines so far.
According to a report by ISNA, if the 4-fold production growth anticipated by the oil ministry is met, production capacity of this joint field will reach approximately 360mcm/d.
Qatar's production from this field is currently 600mcm/d.
The report suggests that if all goes well, $5 billion will be added annually to export revenues.
South Pars gas field is one of the largest independent gas reservoirs in the world lying on the territorial border between Iran and Qatar in the Persian Gulf.
Covering 3,700 square kilometers of Iran’s territorial waters, the Iranian share of South Pars is estimated to contain 14 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves and 18 billion barrels of gas condensates.
This amounts to roughly 7.5 % of the world and approximately half of the Iran’s gas reserves.
