Page 75 - IRANRptOct22

9.2 Major corporate news 9.2.1 Oil & gas corporate news
South Pars gas output running at 615 mcm per day
Iran’s NIGC supplies 265 bcm of gas in 12 months
Iran’s state-owned South Pars Gas Co. (SGPC) announced this week that output from the supergiant gas field of the same name is running at 614.7mn cubic metres per day. According to SPGC managing director Ahmad Bahoush, the rate applies to the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year.
His comments came during a meeting with Mohammad Meshkinfam, CEO of Pars Oil and Gas Co. (POGC), which holds ultimate responsibility for the development of South Pars. SGPC is responsible for gas processing and other downstream facilities associated with the field, while Petropars handles on the surface and subsurface.
All three firms are subsidiaries of the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC).
The overall South Pars development includes 37 platforms across the field’s 24 phases, and last year the field expansion projects were inaugurated, which brought the field’s capacity in line with its long-term target rate of 1bn cubic metres per day. However, POGC is required to carry out extensive annual maintenance across the field’s 24 phases to ensure stable production during winter months.
Iran is home to around 34 trillion cubic metres of proven natural gas reserves, with the supergiant South Pars accounting for around 14 tcm as well as 18bn barrels of gas condensates. The Islamic Republic holds a 3,700-square km portion of the 9,700-square km deposit that is shared with Qatar, where it is known as the North Dome field. Around 80% of the field’s initial gas reserves are believed to remain in place.
Bahoush and Meskhinfam discussed the urgency with which this year’s maintenance should be completed in preparation for winter.
Phase 11 (SP11) is the one remaining section of the current upstream project to be completed. It was due to be launched this month, but no updates have been forthcoming since that date was set early this year. SP11 is targeting the production of 57 mcm per day of gas, a level it was expected to reach by the end of the current Iranian calendar year.
Petropars was left as the only remaining partner in the $4.879bn project, for which stakes of 50.1% and 30% were awarded to French super-major Total (now TotalEnergies) and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) respectively in July 2017. The award was made for an integrated petroleum contract (IPC) model, setting SP11’s production target at the time at 20.8 bcm per year.
The National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) supplied close to 265bn cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas between July 2021 and June this year, Tehran’s Financial Tribune has reported, citing Energy Today.
Iran’s gas is mainly consumed by the domestic market. US sanctions in recent years have hindered gas development projects oriented towards exports in that Iran has not been able to access the technology, finance and knowhow fast enough to meet project targets. Nevertheless, Iran, which boasts the world’s second biggest gas reserves, still has big plans to, working with Russia, become a major supplier of gas to world markets. It sees liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the breakthrough product. Between them, Iran and Russia believe they can dominate the global LNG market.
NIGC’s average daily volume of gas transferral was 700mn cubic metres (mcm) per day during the first three months of the current Persian calendar
75 IRAN Country Report October 2022 www.intellinews.com