Efforts are underway to end gas flaring in two oilfields in the southern province of Khuzestan in the coming months, a senior official at the National Iranian Oil Company said.
"The gas flaring in Ahvaz-3 Oilfield will end by late May and the burning APG in Ahvaz-2 Oilfield will be harnessed within the next three to four months," Bijan Alipour, director of the National Iranian South Oil Company (an NIOC subsidiary), was also quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
The official added that the associate petroleum gas emitted from Ahvaz-2 and Ahvaz-3 oilfields will be harnessed and transferred to petrochemical complexes to produce value-added commodities.
Flaring is the burning of natural gas that cannot be processed or sold. The flaring of APG is an important safety measure at many oil and gas production sites, as it prevents industrial plant equipment from over-pressuring and exploding.
Alipour said operations to reduce gases emitted from the oilfields are under development, though major hurdles have lowered the pace of such processes.
According to the official, lack of financial resources is the main hurdle on the way to fulfill the goal.
"NISOC's total debt stands at 18 trillion rials [$428 million]," he said.
As all the required equipment had to be imported, the internationally-imposed sanctions, which were lifted in January 2016, had hampered supplementary processes.
However, positive steps have been taken in this regard.
"About 12 million cubic feet of APG have been to a [unnamed] company which is transferred to petrochemical units for other uses instead of burning," he said.
Referring to the tender recently held for Maroun-3 and Maroun-6 oilfields in the southern province of Khuzestan, Alipour said the contractor has been obliged to annually deliver 45 mcm of APG to petrochemical companies.
Iran's production of almost 4 million barrels of oil per day results in the flaring of around 39 million cubic meters of gas across the country.
Last March, the Iranian Parliament signed into law a bill to curb the flaring of natural gas to 10% or lower by 2021. Oil- and gas-rich Iran has agreed to a global pact to move away from fossil fuels with the goal of limiting a rise in average global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius.
Other domestic players in the oil and gas sector have also geared up to fulfill their role in this regard.
South Pars Gas Company signed a deal with a domestic firm in March on transferring APG
from Phase 12 of the giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf.
Several subsidiaries of NIOC also signed agreements with Italy's Ansaldo Energia in late 2017 on curbing and transferring APG from the Persian Gulf gas fields for electricity generation.
Plans are in place to bring the level of gas flaring in the South Pars down to zero by March 2020 and prevent the ever-increasing APG from burning off.
