Studies on securing and plugging abandoned gas wells in North Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf have been completed by Pars Oil and Gas Company.
According to Oil Ministry's Shana, the mega project to secure the old gas wells, which had been abandoned for more than 40 years without safety measures, has been divided into "well diagnosis" and "execution" phases.
The initial phase is now complete with the help of POGC experts and scientists who have carried out comprehensive studies on the whole area and infrastructure.
Now the company is ready to implement the project with a focus on wells with the highest emission.
Several factors, including the dispersion of wells across a vast area, severe deterioration of splash zone areas, damage inflicted on the field during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, high pressure gas trapped in the wells, dilapidation of wellhead equipment, had increased the project's operational risks.
If a well is not abandoned after securing it properly, it may provide pathways for brines, hydrocarbons or other fluids to migrate up the well and into shallow drinking water aquifers or to surface. When the well reaches its economic limit, the operator plugs and abandons it. The purpose of permanent well abandonment is to isolate permeable and hydrocarbon bearing formation to many purposes such as protecting underground resources and other exploitable wells in the field.
Field Exploitation
According to Mehr News Agency, Russia's Gazprom has offered to develop North Pars as well as other Iranian oil and gas fields.
Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh had already announced that Russian Gazprom is ready to contribute to the project for transferring Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.
Located 85 kilometers north of the giant South Pars Gas Field at water depths of 2 to 30 meters, North Pars was discovered in 1967 as one of the biggest independent gas fields in the world.
It contains about 2.26 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves. At present, final studies for the development of the field within four phases for producing an equivalent of 102 million cubic meters per day are being conducted.
The first scheme to operate the field was approved in 1977. However, after drilling 17 wells and installation of 26 maritime platforms the project was halted due to the Iraq-imposed war.
In September 2006, China National Offshore Oil Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Iranian Oil Company for the development of North Pas Gas Field. The MoU was extended in December 2006 to incorporate the development of a four-train LNG facility with a capacity of 20 million tons per annum. POGC is a subsidiary of state-owned National Iranian Oil Company. It has been the contractor of several phases of South Pars as well as North Pars, Golshan and Ferdowsi gas fields in the Persian Gulf.
