Page 12 - MEOG Week 21 2022

MEOG PROJECTS & COMPANIES MEOG

Iran announces deal with foreign firm

IRAN THE National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) this week and partner TotalEnergies produce upwards of
confirmed the signing of an investment deal with 300,000 bpd.
a foreign company for the development of the oil The secretive deal follows the announcement
layer of the supergiant South Pars gas field. last week that talks are ongoing between NIOC
A statement from NIOC’s manager for invest- and Russian firms for the development of two
ment and business affairs, Fereydoun Kord-Zan- Iranian oilfields, widely believed to be Ab Tey-
ganeh, said that a $530mn agreement had been mour and Mansouri, for which Lukoil had pre-
struck during the previous Iranian calendar year, viously agreed terms.
which ended on March 22, though it noted that
the details of the deal remain confidential. Pars Phase 11
The Islamic Republic has expanded gas out- Work is progressing on the final development
put significantly at South Pars in recent years phase of the project to tap South Pars’ gas
and supplies are estimated to flow at an average resource, with the company responsible provid-
of 850-950mn cubic metres per day, topping out ing an update this week.
at 1bn cubic metres. Last year, NIOC announced Mohammad Meshkinfam, CEO of Pars Oil
$70bn plans to expand production capacity to and Gas Co. (POGC) – another subsidiary of
1.5 bcm per day by 2030. Announcing the South NIOC – said that Phase 11 would be capable of
Pars Oil Layer (SPOL) deal, Kord-Zanganeh producing 12 mcm per day by winter this year.
said: “We are pursuing the exploration of oil lay- POGC holds ultimate responsibility for the
ers in the oilfield as well.” development of South Pars, with fellow NIOC
In mid-March, NIOC said it had signed a affiliate Petropars carrying out jobs on the sur-
20-year contract to leverage enhanced oil recov- face and subsurface.
ery (EOR) techniques for the second phase of Speaking to the Ministry of Petroleum’s
development of SPOL to increase output, though Shana media outlet, Meshkinfam said: “Accord-
Kord-Zanganeh said it had not been covered by ing to the gas production plan of this field, this
the press owing to ongoing sanctions on Iran. [Iranian calendar] year, output will increase by
However, Middle East Oil & Gas (MEOG, 40 mcm per day.”
Week 11) quoted NIOC CEO Mohsen Kho- He added that “One train of the [South Pars
jasteh-Mehr as saying: “For the first time, hori- phase 14] refinery of this phase entered the pro-
zontal drilling with new foreign technologies duction circuit late last calendar year and the
and water injection will be used as one of the other three trains will be operational this year.”
methods of production enhancement.” Meanwhile, he said that plans are being
He added: “The situation of the South Pars pursued for the development of the offshore
oil layers is such that we cannot exploit them by Farzad-B gas field, where in-place resources are
conventional drilling that we have in the coun- estimated at 23 trillion cubic feet (651 bcm) of
try; therefore this is one of the special advantages gas and around 115mn barrels of condensate.
of this contract that in addition to foreign invest- Previous studies determined that around 16 tcf
ment, technology transfer will also be made (453 bcm) of gas and 80mn barrels of condensate
possible.” could be recoverable.™
The foreign firm will partner NIOC subsidi-
ary Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construc-
tion Co. (IOECC) to update reservoir models,
upgrade and modify existing facilities, overhaul
existing well and drill new wells for appraisal,
production and water injection.
Located 130 km off Iran’s southern coast in
67 metres of water, the oil layer has an estimated
7bn barrels of oil in place (OIP), 900mn barrels
of which are seen as recoverable, with first phase
production reaching 25,000 barrels per day and
the second phase seen raising this to 55,000-
60,000 bpd.
The South Pars deposit, which Iran shares
with Qatar, covers an area of 9,700 square km,
with Iran’s 3,700-square km portion holding
around 14 trillion cubic metres of gas and 18bn
barrels of gas condensates. In Qatar, the gas asset
is known as the North Dome and is responsible
for the vast majority of the island nation’s pro-
duction. SPOL is the Iranian extension of Qatar’s
Al-Shaheen oilfield from which QatarEnergy

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 21 25•May•2022