The National Iranian Drilling Company, a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company, has drilled 4,500 onshore and offshore oil and gas wells since inception in 1980, the company director said in Ahvaz.
In about four decades, "with the help of 3 offshore and 69 onshore rigs, NIDC drilled over 9 million meters of wells nationwide," the Persian economic newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad (sister publication of Financial Tribune) quoted Seyed Abdollah Mousavi as saying.
Besides drilling wells, the company also provides over 30% of technical services to the oil industry, namely well logging, cementing and acidizing, drill stem test, well testing, training, development and general services.
The state-owned company NIDC has a workforce of 20,000. “Drilling rigs operate round the clock and work stops only for overhaul."
Supporting Local Firms
Mousavi asserted that NIDC buys domestically-made goods and services to help promote domestic knowledge-based companies.
NIDC says it has indigenized over 5,000 drilling parts in collaboration with domestic manufactures and engineers over the past two decades.
The indigenized equipment, accounting for almost 80% of the industry's needs, include drilling mud pumps, blowout preventers, traction motors, draw-works, drilling fluid recycling systems, mission centrifugal pumps, top drives and drilling rig slow circulation rate pressure systems.
NIDC has indigenized over 5,000 drilling parts in collaboration with domestic manufactures and engineers over the past two decades
“We may need to collaborate with foreign companies in normal oil and gas fields. But that is only in investment terms. Our domestic companies and academia are focused on manufacturing parts and equipment for the oil industry and drilling,” Mousavi added.
Expanding Projects
Referring to NIDC projects overseas, he said the company is willing to undertake drilling and subsidiary services in other countries, especially in the neighborhood.
“We have taken some measures in Iraq and also plan to start drilling in Oman and Ukraine. The quality and nature of the tenders are also very important to us,” he said but did not provide details on the issue.
Iran and Iraq share an estimated reservoir of four billion barrels of oil in Azar Oilfield in Anaran block, in western Ilam Province. NIDC recently completed drilling seven wells in that block to tap into the shared natural resource.
The field is considered as one of the most difficult reservoirs to drill due to the sequence of its low - and high-pressure layers and the large number of tubes needed for drilling and lining wells.
Azar is one of the six joint fields with Iraq, along with Dehloran, West Paydar, Naft-Shahr, Azadegan and Yadavaran.
Iran shares oil and gas reservoirs with neighbors, including several oil deposits with Iraq. The Arab state shares 1,400km of border with Iran to the west.
“We want to enter foreign markets and this is part of the company's overseas plan. We hope we can provide technical services to other countries (especially neighbors), or set up drilling rigs for drilling wells overseas,” Mousavi said.
Cognizant of the tough competition in the international oil industry, the senior official sad, “This (foreign projects) is not a simple enterprise…There are major drilling companies working in the neighboring countries and we have to compete with them”.
NIDC is involved in 70% of Iran's onshore drilling and has 72 drilling rigs 68 of which are used in joint oilfields, namely Azar and South Pars.
It undertakes both offshore and onshore drilling contracts and provides 90% of drilling services to domestic companies.
