BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 14
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) will carry out two seismic and two non-seismic exploration operations in the current Iranian year (starting from March 20, 2020), head of the exploration department of NIOC Saleh Hendi said, Trend reports referring to official website of the company.
According to Hendi, seismic exploration is expected to be carried out in late May in Darghaz county of Razavi Khorasan province in northeastern Iran. The contractor for this project has been picke and work is underway.
Hendi added that the next seismic exploration will be carried out in Dasht-Kuh station of Fars province.
The official said that non-seismic exploration will be conducted in two regions where no exploration activities have been carried out so far - Jazmurian station of Sistan and Baluchestan province in southeastern Iran and Bostanabad county which is the center of East Azerbaijan province in northwestern Iran.
"Two major contracts were signed in connection with the seismic exploration in the last Iranian year (from March 21, 2019 to March 20, 2020). These projects are the Basht project in the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province in southwestern Iran and the Paniz project on Kish Island of Hormuzgan province in the southern Iranian. At present, these projects are being implemented, " he said.
Iran has 125 oil fields and 59 gas fields. Iran's total hydrocarbon reserves are estimated at 836 billion barrels.
With available technology and equipment, the country can extract 239 billion barrels. Thus, 29 percent of the country hydrocarbon reserves are recoverable, while 71 percent remain underground.