Iran has produced over 4.5 million barrels of crude from the oil layer of South Pars, the world's largest gas field in the Persian Gulf, since production began nearly eight months ago, the director of the oil layer said.
“Eight oil cargoes, or a total of 4.2 million barrels, have so far been sent to target destinations, the last of which was shipped a week ago,” Fardin As’adi was also quoted as saying by ISNA on Sunday.
Underscoring that the oil layer’s daily production stands at an average rate of 25,000 barrels, As’adi added that a 550,000-barrel crude oil cargo is shipped every 20-25 days from South Pars.
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.
He stressed that the new production ceiling for the oil layer will be announced by mid-January based on the condition of oil wells and the reservoir models.
According to As’adi, the drilling of wells in the field, with the goal of injecting 30,000 barrels of water for stabilizing reservoir pressure and preventing the reduction in wells’ oil production, is on the agenda.
NIOC plans to employ enhanced oil recovery methods, including water injection, to boost the extraction rate in fields 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.
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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