Page 6 - MEOG Week 01 2021

MEOG PRICES & PERFORMANCE MEOG

NIOC on track for South

Azadegan completion

IRAN THE CEO of the National Iranian Oil Co. central treatment export plant (CTEP), two
(NIOC) said this week that it would conclude intermediate separation plants, 328 km of flow
work to expand oil production at its South Aza- pipelines, 45 km of communication pipelines
degan oilfield by mid-2023, in line with the tar- and 65 km of gas and crude oil transmission
get he set when he was appointed last year. pipelines running from the CTEP to the West
The company’s CEO, Mohsen Khojasteh- Karun Pumping House and the NGL 3200
mehr, was quoted by the Ministry of Petroleum facility. Ten of these wells were contracted to
(MoP) Twitter account as saying: “With the com- the National Iranian Drilling Co. (NIDC), with
pletion of the development project of this field, Petropars awarding the final 25 wells to Dana
#crude_oil production will reach 320,000 barrels Energy and Tadbir Drilling Development Co. a
per day from the field.” month earlier.
Khojastehmehr was appointed head of NIOC Once complete, these will take the total num-
in September, when he stressed the need for the ber of wells drilled at South Azadegan to 206,
swift implementation of oilfields shared with fulfilling the first development phase of the asset.
Iraq, adding that “delays and shortcomings in However, Khojastehmehr added: “If we want
the development of these fields have been due to complete the process of developing the second
to defects in the contracts concluded between phase of North Azadegan and Yadavaran fields
PEDEC and the developers”. along with the development of South Azadegan
He added: “We expect the development pro- and Yaran fields, we will need about $11bn in
cess of the South Azadegan joint field to be com- investment.”
pleted within a year.” This figure will be required if Iran is to
However, the timeline for completion is sev- achieve its target of increasing oil production by
eral months later than envisioned when a con- 1mn bpd from the West Karoun cluster in Khuz-
tract for the work was issued in July 2020. estan Province, which includes several large oil-
At that point, NIOC subsidiaries Petroleum fields that straddle the Iran-Iraq border, namely
Engineering and Development Co. (PEDEC) Azadegan, Yaran, Yadavaran and Darkhoein,
and Petropars signed a $1.26bn contract to with the first three divided into north and south
expand oil production capacity at South Aza- projects.
degan from 140,000 bpd to 320,000 bpd by the The block holds an estimated 67bn barrels of
end of January 2023. The upstream portion of oil in place (OIP). Oil production from the fields
the contract includes drilling 35 wells, installing currently runs at around 420,000 bpd.
50 downhole ESP pumps and completing eight Further investment of around $134bn has
manifolds. been spoken of as being needed for broader pro-
The midstream part includes a 320,000 bpd jects to overhaul and modernise the oil sector.™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 01 05•January•2022