South Pars Gas Output at 550 mcm/d

Close to 550 million cubic meters per day of gas are currently extracted from the giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf, the deputy for development and engineering at the National Iranian Oil Company said on Saturday.

“The launch of phases 13, 14 and 22-24 will help boost gas production from South Pars,” Gholamreza Manouchehri was also quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.

Manouchehri added that in the past two years, Iran’s oil and gas output registered an increase, such that daily oil production is now at about 4 million barrels and gas has a 70% share in the country’s energy basket.

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

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

Expressing satisfaction with the progress made in Iran’s negotiations with international companies on the development of Iranian oil and gas fields, the official did not deny the possibility of reaching contracts in the current fiscal that ends on March 20.

“We are on the verge of signing some contracts and we hope a part of the talks would bear fruit, especially in the next fiscal,” he said.

According to the report, NIOC has signed numerous memoranda of understanding with domestic and foreign firms on carrying out geological studies on Iranian oil and gas fields since international sanctions were lifted in January 2016. Subsequently, the state-owned company received 45 development proposals.

New Phases Help Save $1 Billion

More than $1 billion in costs have been saved in the first nine months of the current fiscal year (started March 21, 2017) by supplying gas instead of diesel and mazut to the power plants, Saeed Momeni, the deputy for gas distribution at the National Iranian Gas Company, said on Saturday.

Iran has abundant natural gas deposits and it is more cost-effective for the country to use gas for power generation instead of liquid fuels.

“Recent South Pars phases have helped stabilize gas export to residential, industrial and power sectors,” Momeni was quoted as saying by Shana, the Oil Ministry’s official news agency.

According to the official, Iranian power plants have received an average of 200 million cubic meters of feedstock gas per day in nine months (March 21-Dec. 21), showing an increase of 11 mcm/d of gas compared to the corresponding period pf the fiscal2016-17.

Momeni noted that the overall increase in gas supply to power plants stands at about 4 billion cubic meters, indicating a 5.5% growth.