BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 11. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) will implement a number of plans to increase crude oil extraction for the current Iranian year (March 21, 2022 through March 20, 2023), Director of the integrated planning at the NIOC, Karim Zobeydi said, Trend reports citing the company’s website.
“Thus, development work will be carried out on the first phase of Iran's South Azadegan oil field by the end of this year. As a result, as of next Iranian year (March 21, 2023 through March 19, 2024), Iran’s crude oil extraction from this phase will increase to 220,000 barrels per day,” Zobeydi said.
Iran's Azadegan oil field is located 80 km southwest of Ahvaz city in the Khuzestan Province (southwestern Iran). It is estimated that the field contains about 32 billion barrels of oil. In Iran, this field is usually divided into two parts - North Azadegan and South Azadegan.
At present, crude oil extraction from Iran's South Azadegan oil field is 85,000 barrels daily. The field contains 28.2 billion barrels of crude oil, of which 1.6 billion barrels can be extracted.
According to the first plan for the development of this field, daily 320,000 barrels of crude oil and 197 million cubic feet (about 7 million cubic meters) of natural gas will be extracted from the field.
According to the second plan, daily 280,000 barrels of crude oil will be extracted from the field. In total, 600,000 barrels of crude oil daily will be extracted from the Azadegan oil field.
The director also added that at the same time, the NIOC holds final discussions with a foreign company on the development of Iran's Yadavaran oil field. These discussions include increasing crude oil extraction from the field from 110,000 barrels per day to 210,000 barrels per day.
The Yadavaran oil field, which is located 60 km southwest of the Ahvaz city in the Khuzestan Province on the Iran-Iraq border, contains 6.3 billion barrels of oil. It is estimated that about 6.2 billion barrels of this volume can be extracted. The extraordinary extraction from this field exceeded 50,000 barrels per day. More than 110,000 barrels of oil are currently extracted daily from the first phase of the field through 49 wells.
Zobeydi stressed that before the US imposed new sanctions on Iran in 2018, Iran's crude oil extraction was 3,838,000 barrels per day. During the sanctions period, the extraction decreased significantly.
“In order to return crude oil extraction to pre-sanctions levels, work has been carried out in several stages. Finally, on March 6, 2022, it was possible to extract the same volume of crude oil. At present, Iran can again extract 3,838,000 barrels of crude oil per day,” the official noted.
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