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Milestone year in Iran's gas sector

Business Materials 20 October 2014 17:38 (UTC +04:00)
After four years, in early 2014 Iran has implemented early gas production from the biggest phase of giant South Pars gas field and prepares to double the production in the next couple of months
Milestone year in Iran's gas sector

By Dalga Khatinoglu

After four years, in early 2014 Iran has implemented early gas production from the biggest phase of giant South Pars gas field and prepares to double the production in the next couple of months.

The Islamic Republic also plans to implement early gas production at other phases in the near future.

The giant South Pars gas field which counts above 40 percent of the country's gas production is the world's biggest gas field with above 33 trillion cubic meters (cm) of reserves. It's a joint field between Iran and Qatar.

Until 2009, Iran inaugurated 10 of 28 phases of South Pars, producing about 290 million cubic meters per day (mcmpd) of gross natural gas, but the figure increased by 12 mcmpd in early 2014 by implementation of 12 phase, the field's biggest phase.

Iran boosted the gas output by launching the first platform (12A) to 25 mcmpd in July.

Rokaneddin Javadi the managing director of National Iranian Oil Company told IRNA on Oct.20 that another two platforms (12B and 12C) of phase 12 will be installed in December 2014 and Feburary 2015.

"Iran is producing 25 mcmpd of gas, alongside 46,000 barrels of gas condensate from A12," he said.

Iran is to boost the gas output in phase 12 to 65 mcmpd until March 2015 and after full completion of the phase 12, it's expected the output level to reach 82 mcmpd of gas.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said in August that Iran's gas production capacity will increase by about 200 million cubic meters in two years.

Javadi says the during the current fiscal year to March 21, 2015, Iran will increase gas output by 100 mcmpd. Alongside the phase 12, Iran tested two platforms of phases 15 and 18 (15A and 18A).

Iran is going to implement early gas production from Phases 15 and 16 (two phases are a joint project) by installing two platforms until late November.

Iran scheduled refining about 40 mcmpd gas from three gas refiners of Phase 15 until the mentioned time.

Nowadays, 17 mcmpd of sour gas produced from phase 6 to 8 is refined in the phase 15 refinery, but it's expected to reach 40 mcmpd, including 12.5 mcmpd of gas produced in phase 17 and 18 (these two phases are a joint project as well).

The total gas production capacity of phases 15 and 16, as well as 17 and 18 will be 56.6 mcmpd and 50 mcmpd respectively after full completion.

Regarding this fact that none of Iran's new gas export agreements will not start until next spring, it's expected that Iran's gas production would meet the domestic needs this winter.

Last winter Iran faced with huge gas deficit and had to cut gas supply to petrochemical units, power plants, industry sector and CNG producing plants. Iran also cut gas injection to old oil fields.

It seems Iran can pass upcoming winter without any gas supply problem.

Iran's gas output (excluding gas flared or recycled) reached 166.6 billion cubic meters in 2013, while the consumption level was 162.2 bcm in 2013, according to BP estimations. Iran also imported 4.7 bcm of gas from Turkmenistan and exported 9 bcm to Turkey and Armenia,.

Iran is going to produce about one billion cubic meters of gas from South Pars by full implementation of 24 phases until 2018.

Qatar's gross gas production at South Pars joint gas field is nearly two times more that Iran's output. Qatar is the world's biggest liquid natural gas producer and produces 155 billion cubic meters of gas annually.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration's assessment about the development of South Pars project

Phase

Natural gas
capacity (Bcf/d)

Condensate
capacity
(bbl/d)

Participating
companies

Start year or expected start date

1

1

40,000

PetroPars,Petronas

2004

2

2

80,000

Total, Petronas, Gazprom

2002

3

4

2

80,000

ENI, PetroPars, NaftIran

2004

5

6

3.9

156,000

Statoil, PetroPars

2009

7

8

9

2

80,000

PetroPars

2011

10

11

2

80,000

PetroPars

2020+

12

3

120,000

POGC, NIOC, PDVSA

2014

13

2

80,000

Mapna, Sadra,Pedro Pidar

2020+

14

2

77,000

IDRO, IEOCC, NIDC

2017

15

2

80,000

POGC, ISOICO

2015

16

17

2

80,000

PetroPars, OIEC, IOEC

2016

18

19

2

77,000

PetroPars, IOEC

2018

20

2

75,000

OIEC

2017

21

22

2

77,000

Petro Sina Arian, Sadra

2016

23

24

Dalga Khatinoglu is a specialist on Iran's energy sector and head of Trend Agency Iran News Service

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