Changuleh Oilfield Studies Underway

International energy majors, namely Norwegian oil and gas company DNO, Russia’s Gazprom Neft PJSC and Thailand’s state-owned PTTEP, are conducting studies to develop Changuleh Oilfield in western Iran, director of the oilfield said on Tuesday.

“The firms will submit their development proposals by the end of the current fiscal year in March 2017 and plans are in place to put the field out to tender in early 2017,” Ali Abbas Lorki was quoted as saying by Shana.

According to Lorki, the field will be developed in two phases.

In the first phase, which is scheduled to last 40 months, output will reach 15,000 barrels per day by drilling four and repairing two wells. Laying a 100-kilometer pipeline and installing a gas-oil separation package are also part of the first phase. The second development phase calls for drilling 13 wells along with laying more pipelines, with the field’s output to increase to 50,000 barrels a day. 

The oilfield is located near the Iraqi border in the western Ilam Province. It is estimated to hold 7 billion barrels of oil reserves. Production is expected to go as high as 75,000 barrels per day upon completion.

“Changuleh, discovered in 1999 but never developed, is estimated to hold more than 2 billion barrels of oil,” he said, adding that the project is estimated to require an investment worth $2.2 billion. According to Gholamreza Manouchehri, the deputy for development and engineering at the National Iranian Oil Company, Iran is also studying a proposal by DNO to develop Hengam oil and gas field in the Persian Gulf, the only shared field between Iran and Oman.

Manouchehri noted that DNO is interested in developing Hengam based on a practice known as “unitization”—the joint development of a hydrocarbon reservoir extending across two countries—based on which the two sides split production and profit.