BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 18. Iran is currently implementing several important plans in order to increase gas production, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji said in his speech at the Iranian parliament on October 18, 2022, Trend reports citing Shana News Agency.
According to Owji, one of these important plans is the development of the 11th phase of the Iran-Qatar joint South Pars gas field.
“With the development of the mentioned phase, in the first phase, 14 million cubic meters of gas will be produced daily by the end of the current Iranian year (March 20, 2023),” he added.
The minister also pointed out that provision of funds needed for the implementation of plans to increase gas production is an important issue. The allocation of funds from Iran's National Development Fund (NDF) can contribute to boosting gas production.
Owji noted that the South Pars gas field accounts for 75 percent of the country's total gas production, other gas fields for 20 percent, and oil fields for 5 percent.
“The gas production was planned to be 1.3 billion cubic meters per day under the 6th Development Program (2017 through 2021), adopted by the Iranian government. However, gas production amounted to about 850 million cubic meters per day within the mentioned period. The reason for not achieving the result planned in the Development Program was the lack of provision of needed funds for the development of gas fields,” he said.
At present, Iran's gas production is around 1 billion cubic meters per day.
The South Pars gas field (called North Dome in Qatar) is a joint gas field of Iran and Qatar. The proven reserves of the South Pars Gas Field are estimated at 51 trillion cubic meters of gas, of which 36 trillion are extractable. Iran's share in the field is 14 trillion cubic meters of gas and 18 billion barrels of gas condensate.
Over the last Iranian year (March 21, 2021 through March 20, 2022), Iran produced a total of 231 billion cubic meters of rich gas from the South Pars gas field. Reportedly, Iran's gas production from the mentioned field reached 705 million cubic meters per day at the end of the last Iranian year.
In 2017, the project to develop the 11th phase of the South Pars gas field was entrusted to France's Total, China's CNPCI and Iran's Petropars. However, the foreign companies have refused to carry out operations at the 11th phase of the South Pars gas field as a result of US sanctions against Iran. As a result, the operations at this phase were fully entrusted to the Petropars Operation and Management Company (POMC).
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