Yadavaran Oilfield Revenues at $3.2b

Iran has extracted about 65 million barrels of oil from Yadavaran Oilfield near the Iraqi border in Khuzestan Province since it started production, earning a total of $3.2 billion in revenues.

According to ISNA, the oilfield’s output rate is currently at 110,000 barrels per day, which is expected to reach a maximum of 450,000 bpd in the second phase of development. The oilfield was officially inaugurated by President Hassan Rouhani in November 2016.

Yadavaran joint field is located 70 kilometers west of the city of Ahvaz, the provincial capital of Khuzestan, in an oil block known as West Karoun. Based on recent studies, the field's in-place crude reserves were revised to more than 31 billion barrels from 12 billion barrels.

The National Iranian Oil Company is holding talks with multinationals, namely French energy giant Total S.A., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Italy's Eni SpA and Japan's Inpex Corp to participate in the tender to develop the second phase of the field based on Iran Petroleum Contract, a new model of contracts that will be used to develop upstream exploration/production projects.

This is while Hadi Nazarpour, the field's director, said in a statement last year that China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) will retain its position as contractor of Yadavaran in the field’s second phase.

"The master development plan for Yadavaran Oilfield has been drawn up and it was decided that Sinopec will develop the second phase of the field," Nazarpour had told a press conference.

The remarks came after Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said in May 2016 that China will maintain its role in North Azadegan and Yadavaran oilfields under the same buyback agreements it had signed in the past to develop the two fields. West Karoun holds an estimated 67 billion barrels of oil in place.

Production from all oilfields in the West Karoun block is close to 300,000 barrels a day. According to published reports, Iran is currently drawing crude from the block at an unacceptable extraction rate of 5-6%.