Azerbaijan, Baku, Apr. 29/ Trend F.Milad/
The managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company said that no Iranian contractor has been withdrawn from the South Pars gas field.
Mousa Souri rejected some news about withdrawal of the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization (IDRO) from the phases 17 and 18 of the gas field, saying that the oil ministry has just agreed to reduce the volume of operations by a number of contractors to force them to implement the operations sooner, PANA News Agency reported.
Iran will start tapping the phases 15, 16, 17 and 18 of the South Pars gas field in the near future, the deputy director of the Pars Oil and Gas Company said on Friday.
Gholamreza Bahmannia added that the phases will come on stream by the end of the current calendar year (March 2013), the IRIB reported.
The South Pars gas field accounts for some 40 percent of the country's total gas output, he said, adding that after the phases 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20 and 21 come on stream, the capacity will reach 70 percent.
Iran should invest $36 billion per year in the domestic oil industry by the end of the fifth five-year development plan (2015), the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said last week.
"The figure will be increased up to $40 billion in the best case and will be dropped to $30 billion in the worst case," ISNA news agency quotes NIOC head Ahmad Qalebani as saying.
The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share, which is divided into 29 phases, accounts for about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.