Azerbaijan, Baku, April 18 / Trend S.Isayev, T. Jafarov/
Iran's South Pars gas field phases 15 and 16 started early production, country's Deputy Oil Minister Javad Owji said, IRINN reported.
Earlier it was reported that South Pars' gas field phases 15 and 16 will start production in August.
The managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company Mousa Souri said that development of the phases 17 and 18 is going ahead of schedule. On April 4, Souri said that some 86 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas was produced in the South Pars gas field in the past calendar year.
On March 14, Mehr news agency quoted deputy oil minister Javad Owji as saying that once six more phases of Iran's South Pars gas field come on stream, the gas field's output will be increased by 200 million cubic meters (mcm) per day to 500mcm.
The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar.
The Iranian share, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.