Baku, Azerbaijan, August 25
By Dalga Khatinoglu -- Trend:
Iranian oil minister says that the government hasn't allocated any financial resources to develop its oil and gas industry due to fall in the price of oil in current year.
The price of oil has plunged from about $108 in first half of 2014 to about $40 currently.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said during a press conference on Aug.25 that during the fiscal year corresponding to 2011 and 2012, Iran invested $40 billion in oil and gas projects in total, while in 2013 and 2014 this figure plunged to $10 billion and $6 billion respectively, Shana reported.
Zanganeh also said South Pars gas field phases 15 and 16 would become operational in 1.5 months and that developing phases 12, 15, 16, 17 and 18 is the ministry's priority.
Iran started early production from phases 12, 15, 16 and 17 during last year to boost gas production level by 100 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) during last fiscal year (ended on March 20), but according to oil minister's statement, the gas production growth level reached 120 mcm/d.
Currently Iran produces about 670 mcm/d to 700 mcm/d of raw gas.
Iran is preparing to operate these phases with full capacity during the current year to produce 84 mcm/d of gas from phase 12 and 25 mcm/d of gas from each of the other mentioned phases. Also preparation to start early gas production from phase 19 of South Pars in the current fiscal year is underway.
Zanganeh said that all phases of South Pars (29 phases) would become operational by 2017, excepting phase 14.
Iran planned to increase the raw gas production to 1,100 mcm/d by late 2018.
South Pars, divided into 29 development phases, contains 40 trillion cubic meters (tcm) of natural gas. It covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, of which 3,700 square kilometers are in Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers are situated in Qatar's territorial waters. The gas field is estimated to contain about 8 percent of the world's reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.
Edited by CN