Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 17/ Trend F.Milad/
The National Drilling Company of Iran will commission six new drilling rigs by the end of the current calendar year (March 19), bringing the total number of operational rigs to 80, the NDC managing director stated.
ISNA news agency quoted Heidar Bahmani as saying that the company intends to raise the number of rigs to 100 in the future.
Iran has imported four drilling rigs and plans to buy or rent four others in a bid to accelerate explorations in the oil and gas fields, the Iranian Central Oilfields Company's managing director said on February 4.
Mehdi Fakour told Mehr news agency that buying the new drilling rigs will take place without holding tenders.
Iran plans to commission seven new drilling rigs in the South Pars gas field by September next year, the Mehr news agency reported.
For the time being, 11 drilling rigs are in operation in 13 phases of the gas field. Developing all the phases will boost Iran's gas output by 700 million cubic metres per day, the report added.
The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share which is divided into 29 phases has about 14 trillion cubic metres of gas, or about eight per cent of the total world reserves and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.
Iran plans to increase the number of its drilling rigs operating on its onshore and offshore oilfields by 36 units to reach 134 units by March 2014, Ahmad Qalebani, the National Iranian Oil Company's managing director, said.