North, South Yaran Fields Could Be Offered as Single Contract

Tehran may choose to award the drilling rights of the North and South Yaran oilfields in  southern Khuzestan Province under a single contract, said a top oil official.

"Our intention is to unify the northern and southern sections of Yaran oilfield into one project. We plan to maintain production from the reservoirs using enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods and downhole pumps," said Noureddine Shahnazizadeh, managing director of the Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC), ISNA reported Friday.

Output has reached 30,000 barrels per day from the North Yaran field, but plans are in place to triple the output using EOR techniques. Production at the field's southern flank is  slated to begin by the end of this month or early July at a rate of 10,000 bpd and gradually rise to 25,000 bpd.

PEDEC was founded in 1994 as the development arm of Iran's state-owned oil company,  NIOC.

Yaran field, about 130 kilometers west of Ahvaz, is one of the several oilfields shared between Iran and Iraq. It holds an estimated 2 billion barrels of in-place crude.

Persia Oil And Gas Industry Development Company will likely undertake the Yaran project, Shahnazizadeh noted. It is one of the 11 domestic companies which has Oil Ministry approval to develop oil and gas fields.

"We are proceeding with works to include an addendum in the Yaran Oilfield contract to award both sections of the field in a single contract. The revised contract should first be approved by the NIOC before being signed by Persia Oil And Gas Industry Development Co," the PEDEC chief said.

  Azadegan Project

NIOC reportedly eyes a similar scheme to develop the prized Azadegan oil deposit that is split into the northern and southern sections and contains an estimated 33 billion barrels of oil in place.

The NIOC had singled out the southern extension of Azadegan as the first of a series of oil and gas fields to be tendered to multinationals. According to recent reports, however, both sections of the shared field could be awarded in a single contract.

Yaran and Azadegan fields are part of the West Karoun oil block, an oil-rich region in Khuzestan that holds some 67 billion barrels of crude oil, most of which is shared between Iran and Iraq. Tehran has prioritized the development of its joint oil deposits in a bid to expand its footprint in the global crude market. The No. 3 producer of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has increased output to almost 4 million barrels  a day.

It plans to add 700,000 barrels to daily production capacity by 2021. Daily exports now amount to more than 2 million bpd of crude oil and between 600,000 and 700,000 barrels  of condensates, a type of ultra light crude.