Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. Mar. 28
By Milad Fashtami - Trend:
Iran successfully installed the offshore platform of South Pars gas field's phase 18, Iran's SHANA News Agency reported on March 28.
It was the second offshore platform of phase 17 and 18 development project.
The platform was constructed domestically.
The first section of phase 18 is expected to start producing 14 million cubic meters of gas in five months.
National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) finished drilling phase 18's wells in February.
The company was in charge of drilling 22 wells in phases 17 and 18.
NIDC has finished drilling 11 wells in giant South Pars gas field's phase 17.
South Pars 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 Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, referred to as the North Dome, are in Qatar's territorial waters.
The Iranian gas field contains 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, about 8 percent of the world's reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of LNG resources.
Iran has the world's fourth-largest proved national reserves of oil - most of it cheap to produce - and is home to the biggest proved reserves of natural gas, some 18 percent of the global total.
According to BP's latest yearly report, Iran's dried gas output is about 160 bcm, a little more than domestic consumption level.
Iran exported 7.5 bcm of gas to Turkey and imported 4.5 bcm of gas from Turkmenistan in 2012, according to BP's report.