Iran has drawn over 3.1 million barrels of crude oil from the oil layer of the South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf and more barrels are planned for loading and export in the next few weeks, the operator of the oil layer said.
Referring to the loading of the last crude oil consignment in the offshore field, Fardin As’adi also told ISNA on Friday that 500,000 barrels are scheduled for loading on October 15. Daily oil production from South Pars stands at 25,000 barrels and the rate is unlikely to change by June next year, the official said.
“Crude oil production from South Pars is in a trial stage, but output can be increased to as much as 150,000 barrels per day in future,” he said.
As’adi said last month that regardless of the state-of-the-art recovery techniques and only through water injection, the reservoir's recovery factor can increase by 10%.
The National Iranian Oil Company plans to employ enhanced oil recovery methods to boost the extraction rate in oilfields by 35%.
South Pars oil layer is located 130 kilometers off Iran's coast in the Persian Gulf with an estimated 7 billion barrels of oil in place, but it is hard to put an accurate estimate on the volume unless more exploratory wells are drilled.
He added that Qatar, which shares the oil and gas field with Iran, extracts more than 300,000 bpd from the oil layer.
Iran began to extract crude oil from South Pars in March using FPSO Cyrus, a floating production storage and offloading vessel. The FPSO was reportedly built in Singapore and cost $300 million.
Iran is pushing for higher crude output from the joint field with Qatar.
The small Arab neighbor, which started extracting oil from the field in 1991, has already drilled more than 300 wells with the help of international oil giants. It has reportedly extracted more than 1 billion barrels of crude from the joint field in the past 25 years.
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