Launch of 5 South Pars Phases Planned by March 2019

Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has announced that five phases of the South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf will go on stream in the next fiscal year (starting March 21).

“Of the remaining phases [13, 14, 22-24], the development of Phase 14 is slightly time-consuming,” Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the National Iranian Oil Company’s news portal.

The oil minister noted that the completion of 11 phases of the giant field, shared with Qatar, in the past four years has been a “great achievement”.

Referring to plans to complete the production chain in the industry, Zanganeh said that with the launch of Siraf Refining Park, in the city of Siraf in Bushehr Province, along with the full exploitation of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery, in Hormozgan Province, the country will no longer export gas condensate, the output of which stands at about 1 million barrels per day.

"South Pars' daily gas output has reached 570 million cubic meters from nearly 280 mcm/d four years ago," he said, adding that in the fiscal 2013-14, 42% of the power plants’ feedstock were liquefied fuel, such as diesel and mazut, but the share is due to go lower than 10% by March.  

Iran had reached that production level in April upon the launch of phases 17-21, which are part of the $20 billion worth of energy projects.

The country reported last year a lower than expected natural gas output from South Pars, as the country continued maintenance activities at some of the field's phases.

It produced close to 94 billion cubic meters of gas from the joint field during March 21-Oct. 22, 2017, or about 435 million cubic meters per day.

Ethane Output

The minister further said Iran’s annual ethane production is currently 4.5 million tons, which will reach 6 million tons in a year and 10 million tons in three years.

“Domestic demand for ethane amounts to 5.5 million tons currently, therefore we will have to export the surplus production,” he added.

Noting that 60,000 people work in the field’s different phases, Zanganeh said, “This is no honor to have 150 billion barrels of crude oil and 33 trillion cubic meters of gas in the reservoirs but to have unemployed youth. Honor is to use the underground wealth to improve the lives of the young generation.”  

The government hopes to ramp up gas output to 1.1 billion cubic meters per day in four years and eyes higher production from the field's oil layer.

Iran aims to complete all South Pars phases by March 2019, which target requires an investment of $20-30 billion.