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South Pars Oil Output Exceeds 4.7m Barrels

South Pars Oil Output Exceeds 4.7m Barrels
South Pars Oil Output Exceeds 4.7m Barrels

Iran's total crude production from the oil layer of South Pars, a large gas field in Persian Gulf, has surpassed 4.7 million barrels, since production began more than eight months ago, a senior official at Iranian Offshore Oil Company said on Wednesday. Mohammad Hossein Daneshfar added that Iran has so far extracted 4.73 million barrels from the field’s oil layer, nearly all of which have been exported, Shana reported.

Daneshfar noted that the ninth crude cargo from South Pars was shipped to foreign markets on Tuesday, stressing that the next shipment is scheduled in about three weeks. Fardin As’adi, the director of the oil layer, told ISNA last month that the field’s daily production stood at an average rate of 25,000 barrels.

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. As’adi underscored 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.

Karim Zobeidi, deputy for planning at the National Iranian Oil Company, said in October that Denmark's major offshore explorer Maersk Oil was in a strong position to win a contract to produce ultra-light crude from the layer and its recent acquisition by France's Total will not adversely affect the potential deal.

Against a backdrop of Maersk Oil's acquisition by Total in a $7.45 billion deal in August and the French company's firm foothold in Iran, Zobeidi said, "If the SP oil project is assigned to Maersk, information on the Iranian side of the project will remain solely with the company."

Experts say it is not yet clear how the acquisition by the French energy giant, which signed a $5 billion deal in June to develop Phase 11 of South Pars, would impact the South Pars oil layer development.

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