SP Platform Construction Gains Momentum

Pars Oil and Gas Company is in talks with domestic contractors including Iran Marine Industrial Company (SADRA) to speed up the development of South Pars Gas Field platforms in phases 13 and 22-24, POGC managing director said on Saturday.

“Phases 22-24 development project have made 75% progress, and plans have been made to complete the platforms by next October. The phases have the capacity to extract 28 million cubic meters per day of natural gas,” Mohammad Meshkinfam was quoted as saying by IRNA.

Attaching special importance to boosting the pace of operations in South Pars, Meshkinfam noted that 10 platforms, including two platforms each for phases 13, 22, 23 and 24 and two for 17b, 18b are under construction in SADRA industrial yard in South Pars.

According to the official, each of the platforms will produce 14 mcm/d of gas from South Pars, the world’s largest gas field shared between Iran and Qatar. The field covers an area of 3,700 square kilometers of Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.

On financial commitments to contractors, Meshkinfam added that the contractors are expected to speed up the development process with the help of advanced technology. Thanks to the removal of international sanctions in January, the much-needed funds have been injected into the mega project and “South Pars development is ahead of plans”.

He added that as soon as all the 10 platforms are up and running, extraction capacity from the field will increase by as much as14 billion cubic meters.

  Phase 13 Development

South Pars Phase 13 has made 80% progress and will start operations in the current fiscal that ends in March 2017 with gas from phases 6, 7 and 8 for processing.

According to the official, the 72-meter high offshore jacket of Phase 13, on which the main platform will be installed, is entirely manufactured by Iranian engineers at SADRA. Development of Phase 13 involves drilling 38 production wells. Drilling operations are now 60% complete.

Phase 13 comprises onshore and offshore sections, with priority given to the offshore part. The project is being implemented in the form of an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreement, by a consortium of domestic companies, namely Petropaydar Iranian Co., MAPNA Group, and SADRA.

On March 22, a Bahraini commercial vessel hit the platform, but no damage was reported. Development of Phase 13 should result in the daily production of 50 mcm of sweet gas, 80,000 barrels of gas condensate, 400 tons of sulfur, and one million tons of ethane per annum as feedstock for petrochemical complexes.

SADRA is one of the leading shipbuilding and repairing companies in Iran active  also in major offshore oil and gas development projects. It specializes in building ships, docks as well as floating oil rigs. Iran has close to 34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, which is around 18% of the total global natural gas reserves. Iran’s strategic location can help meet the growing natural gas demand of Asian countries like India, China and Pakistan, among others.