Azar Oilfield Output Exceeds 4.6m Barrels

Iran has extracted 4.6 million barrels of crude from Azar Oilfield in the western Ilam Province since the field started production about seven months ago.

According to ISNA, the oilfield’s daily production currently stands at 35,000 barrels, which is planned to reach 65,000 bpd in the first phase and 100,000 bpd in the second.

Based on the report, Azar Oilfield holds 2.5 billion barrels of in-place oil but new reservoir studies on the field project the much higher figure of 4 billion barrels.

Nine wells have so far been drilled in the field and 10 others are also planned to be drilled at a cost of €1.56 billion ($1.8 billion).

Azar, with an extraction rate of 16%, is one of the joint fields with Iraq, along with Dehloran, West Paydar, Naft-Shahr, Azadegan and Yadavaran.

The Oil Industries Engineering and Construction Company and Russia's Gazprom Neft signed a memorandum of understanding in July in the Russian city of St. Petersburg to assess the potentials of Changuleh and Azar oilfields.

The parties have agreed to hold joint consultations with the National Iranian Oil Company on the evaluation, exploration and development of assets offered to investors, and to consider additional opportunities for cooperation in Iran.

Headquartered in St. Petersburg, Gazprom Neft is the oil arm of gas giant Gazprom, which owns about 96% of its shares.

Officials say the field is considered a drillers' nightmare given the sequence of its low- and high-pressure layers, and the large number of tubes for drilling and lining of wells, stressing that hydraulic fracturing was initially a challenge in the field, which was solved with acid fracturing, a popular method for improved oil recovery. The field's crude oil API, a measure of how heavy or light petroleum liquids are compared to water, stands at 33, which ranks it among medium grade crudes.