Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 25
By Gazenfer Hamidov – Trend:
Iran has inaugurated a new platform of the South Pars gas field's Phase 14, which has the capacity of extracting about 14.1 million cubic meters.
The flare of the platform 14A of the South Pars gas field was lit yesterday, the oil ministry’s official website reported Feb. 25.
The 14A platform, weighing 2,500 tons, is the first platform of the phase 14, which was installed at its designated offshore location on January 24.
Hamid Reza Masoudi, the operator of the phase’s development project said that the sour gas extracted by 14A platform will be sent to onshore gas refining facility in Kangan for processing through a 32-inch pipeline within two weeks.
Masoudi said that the platform is expected to extract gas from 11 wells, which are drilled by the National Iranian Drilling Company.
He added that 8 of 11 wells will be used for gas extraction after full inauguration of the platform.
The phase 14 development project is aimed at producing 57 million cubic meters (mcm) per day of gas, 75,000 barrels per day of gas condensate. The phase will also yield 400 tons of sulfur, 1 million tons of liquefied gas (LPG), and one million tons of ethane per year.
South Pars gas field with 14 trillion cubic meters of reserves on the Iranian side is jointly owned with Qatar. Iran divided its side of the field into 24 phases and the field's final output capacity is expected to be above 800 mcm/d after launching all phases.
The field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers are in Qatar's territorial waters.
Iran hopes to complete all South Pars phases by March 2019, a target that officials say requires investments worth $20-30 billion.