Azerbaijan, Baku, Jul.15/ Trend F.Milad/
Iran started drilling at the South pars gas field's layer, Pars Oil and Gas Company's managing director Mousa Souri said.
Two drilling rigs are currently in operation at the oil layer, Souri added, the Pana News Agency reported. Some 1500 meters of drilling has so far been conducted, he noted.
Around $800 million is needed to develop the oil layer both in onshore and offshore sections, he said in June.
He added that production is expected to be online at the South Pars oil layer by March 2013. As much as 35,000 barrels of oil per day are expected during the first phase of project development.
Souri said two drilling rigs were to start operating in shared portions of the field this year. He added that his company was looking to rent a floating production, storage and offloading unit for operations in Iranian waters.
The South Pars oil layer is estimated to hold some 1.6 billion barrels of crude.
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.