Page 5 - MEOG Week 17 2022

MEOG COMMENTARY MEOG

work including drilling 12 new wells and 3 re-en- and completion of well 22 at the super-giant
try wells on the subsurface; repairing 11 wells; Ahvaz oilfield.
the installation of 3 pipelines; the fabrication; Speaking to the official energy sector media
and erection of two new platforms and provision outlet Shana, Kamil Babaei, NIDC’s head of the
of fibre-optic cabling. Petropars reported that the Fath 52 drilling rig which was used for the job,
deal was worth $344mn. said that it had been completed nine days ahead
In November that year, ICSOC reported that of schedule.
it had installed an accommodation unit at the “During completion of the well, which was
field. done by observing safety and specialised points,
IOOC reported that it had started drilling on the wellhead equipment was replaced and while
the expansion phase in July 2021, noting the Well examining the well in terms of operation, lining
Target 1 rig would drill wells at the F18 satellite and perforation, the surface was washed to the
platform in the FX area of the offshore field. end,” he said.
The field was discovered in 1966 and began Ahvaz was discovered in 1958, contains 63bn
producing from its 850-900mn barrel resource barrels of oil in place (OIP) and is operated by
in 1974. The asset is located 100 km south-east NIOC subsidiary Karoun Oil and Gas Produc-
of Kharg Island. tion Co. (KOGPC).
According to the most recent published esti- In Q3 last year, NISOC’s director of technical
mates, Forouzan is thought to be producing affairs, Ramin Roghanian, said that output from
around 40,000 bpd, with most surveys merely Ahvaz – Iran’s largest oilfield – was running at
including it in IOOC’s offshore slate. The reser- around 700,000 bpd, noting that work was ongo-
voir is shared with Saudi Arabia – on the other ing to reach the government’s ‘designated capac-
side of the maritime border, Saudi Aramco pro- ity’ of 900,000 bpd.
duces around 405,000 bpd from its Marjan asset. Drilling work across the on- and offshore
At the smaller Resalat field, IOOC appears to continues to move at pace with Tehran focused
have completed drilling work on the ARK-1 well, on its 2030 capacity target. To the south, NIOC
moving the Sahar 2 rig to Kharg operating area is anticipating that significant investments in
from the Lavan area, in which the asset is located. the Khuzestan Province will lead to production
The company told ILNA that Sahar 2 had growth of around 580,000 bpd from the West
been working to remove and replace an electric Karoun oilfield cluster, accounting for more than
submersible pump (ESP) from the well, allowing 18% of the total increase.
production to resume. While efforts to drive production are gather-
The Iranian Offshore Engineering and Con- ing pace elsewhere around the country, Khuz-
struction Co. (IOECC) – another NIOC subsid- estan and the neighbouring Kohgiluyeh &
iary – is carrying out EPC work on Resalat for Boyer-Ahmad Province will continue to account
IOOC. This covers front-end engineering and for the vast majority of production, with com-
design (FEED), construction of a platform, sub- bined gross original oil resources across the two
sea and infield pipelines, jacket maintenance and regions thought to be in excess of 270bn barrels,
modification and six wells – two re-entry wells with reserves equating to around 35-40% of this
and four new wells – as well as final offshore figure.
commissioning. However, as has long been the case with Iran’s
oil assets, poor recovery rates will continue
Ahvaz completion to stifle production growth and we can expect
Onshore, more NIOC subsidiaries – National to see many more contracts awarded for work
Iranian Drilling Co. (NIDC) and National Ira- to increase flow rates throughout the Islamic
nian South Oil Co. (NISOC) – completed repair Republic.™

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