Installation of offshore compressor stations in South Pars Gas Field off the Persian Gulf is the most effective approach to control gas pressure reduction, the managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company said.
"Installed gas platforms weigh almost 2,500 tons and are designed to produce 30 million cubic meters of gas per day. However, the new gas compressor platforms will weigh a minimum 20,000 tons," Mohammad Meshkinfam said, ILNA reported.
According to the POGS chief, the new installations are 10 times heavier and domestic firms have never undertaken complex tasks, but “relying solely on them could carry substantial risk.”
Meshkinfam said major domestic companies, including Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, an engineering company affiliated to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's top engineering and energy company the Mapna Group, the energy company Petropars Ltd., a subsidiary of the National Iranian Company, and Iran Marine Industrial Company or SADRA, have said that they are able and willing to build and install the super structures. But "they neither have the experience nor infrastructure".
The 20,000-ton platforms, which are necessary to maintain gas pressure, will be unrivaled in the region and there are barely a few of its kind in the world. One was constructed in Australia with the help of French energy company Total.
Total SA was to provide NIOC with the know-how to build the structures but shied away after US President Donald Trump walked away from the historic 2015 Iran nuclear deal last summer and re-imposed tough sanctions on the oil and other key industries.
Need for New Platforms
"Our floating crane can carry 2,500-ton platforms and new crane ships are needed to move the 20,000-ton platforms," he said, adding that local shipping yards need to be updated and build new platforms.
Reservoir pressure in SP was higher when the first contract for development of the giant field was signed years ago, he recalled.
“Qatar's excessive gas extraction from the field has reduced the pressure to a great extent and further lowering of pressure will affect production from the operating platforms in the near future.”
According to Meshkinfam, at least 20 compressor stations are needed in South Pars Gas Field over six years.
"We had plans to learn the know-how to build giant structures from Total and indigenize the technology," he noted. “But that was not to be.”
POGC, a subsidiary of NIOC, oversees the development of the gas field in its entirety.
Iran has close to 34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves -- about 18% of the total global natural gas reserves.
NIOC is planning to boost gas production capacity from around 850 million cubic meters per day at present to 1.2 bcm/d by 2020.
South Pars is the world’s largest gas field, shared between Iran and Qatar, covering an area of 3,700 square kilometers of Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. It adjoins Qatar’s North Field that measures 6,000 square kilometers.
