Page 4 - MEOG Week 41

MEOG Commentary MEOG
Iran makes large
gas find as oil focus
turns to shared fields
Iran has announced the discovery of a significant new gas field, while oil efforts return to shared fields along the border with Iraq where low recovery rates prevail.
iran
What:
The new gas field,
Eram, is large by most standards, but does little for Iran in the short-term aside from adding to gas reserves.
Why:
The country is already home to the world’s second largest volumes of gas, though at present, it is struggling to exploit assets that are already further along in their development.
What next:
Increasing oil output
is largely being left to domestic companies as foreign partners either pull out or stall on making commitments for fear of sanction.
ThE National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) this weekend announced that it had discovered a new gas field north of Assaluyeh in the southern region of Fars. Meanwhile, the Islamic republic’s oil focus is refocusing on shared assets along the border with Iraq, as Tehran aims to increase out- put there.
eram discovery
The newly discovered gas deposit, which has been estimated to hold 19 trillion cubic feet (538bn cubic metres) of gas in place and 385mn barrels of condensate, has been named Eram.
Further details were not disclosed in the first announcement, though Reza Dehghan, NIOC’s director of development and engineering affairs, told official energy sector media outlet Shana that drilling had begun in 2018 and took nine months to complete, with gas discovered at a depth of 4,632 metres.
Seismic studies and other preparatory explo- ration activities began several years ago accord- ing to NIOC.
Dehghan added that around 13 tcf (368 bcm) of gas was deemed to be recoverable and that the Eram reservoir is around 400 metres thick.
he said that the field’s development would begin in 2021 or 2022, noting that output from Eram would be directed towards domestic con- sumption as well as for reinjection to prevent loss of pressure.
The new field is located around 60 km north of Assaluyeh and is 50 km in length with an an average width of 5 km.
Alluding to Iran’s already world-class gas reserves, Dehghan said: “If such a discovery takes place in another country, that would be taken very seriously.”
News of the discovery is a boost for Iran’s oil and gas sector, which has been reeling from the ongoing impact of sanctions, the latest manifes- tation of which was the announcement last week
by China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) that it was withdrawing from the phase 11 devel- opment of the South Pars gas field.
Local media will play the two stories as a positive for the opportunities they present for domestic upstream companies in gas, but with numerous large field developments struggling to make targeted progress without foreign partners, Eram is currently little more than a boost to gas reserves.
Speaking to press, Dehghan said that the find had taken total Iranian gas reserves to 1,200 tcf (33.98 bcm), placing it second behind Russia with 35 tcm.
Local players
The move to involve domestic companies in the upstream is extending into oil too.
Speaking to local media last week, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh said that talks had begun with domestic firms to develop the South Pars Oil Layer (SPOL). he added though, that these discussions had yet to bear any fruit.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) last week quoted Dehghan as saying that output from four shared oilfields along the border with Iraq would be increased by around 60,000 barrels per day by March 2020.
he said that output from Yadavaran, Azar, Aban and West Paydar oilfields would rise “thanks to intensive work by Iranian and foreign companies”.
The largest increase is anticipated at the Azar oilfield near Changuleh, which lies in the Anaran block. Output from Azar is expected to grow by around 35,000 bpd to 65,000 bpd.
This corroborates reports by the managing director of Petroleum Engineering and Devel- opment Co. (PEDEC), which operates the field. On October 5, Touraj Dehqani said that the first phase of the development project, which entailed the drilling of 18 wells, has been completed. Azar
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 41 15•October•2019