Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 21
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran will offer the development of the South Pars gas field's oil layer to foreign investors at the London Conference, aiming to provide multinationals with opportunities for development of oil and gas fields in Iran.
Ali-Akbar Shabanpour, managing director of South Pars Oil and Gas Company, said four projects, including the development of the South Pars gas field's oil layer will be offered to foreign companies, Iran's ISNA news agency reported on Feb. 21.
He added that other projects, such as the development of the phase 11 of the South Pars field, and the development of the North Pars gas field will be offered to investors.
The London conference for introducing major Iranian oil industry projects is scheduled for September 2015. Iran plans to introduce over 40 major oil industry projects at the conference.
Moshtaghali Gohari, deputy head of Integrated Planning Department of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) earlier said that Iran would absorb about $40 billion of investments for the projects.
The South Pars field has 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas -or about eight percent of the world's reserves- and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.
The field is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar. The larger field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran's territorial waters (South Pars) in the Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, referred to as the North Dome, are in Qatar's territorial waters.
Iran's share of the gas field is divided into 29 phases, but just 10 phases are currently operational. No phases of the South Pars gas field have recently come on stream.