Details of 21 Iranian gas fields, offered to foreigners

By Dalga Khatinoglu

During last month Tehran hosted 137 companies from 45 countries for a two-day conference, during which legal generalities of Iran's new model of oil and gas contract (Iran Petroleum Contract, or IPC) were introduced. More details about the contracts will be unveiled at a conference likely to be held in London in February 2016.

The legal generalities of the IPC shows that it covers a package for all exploration, development, and production stages in many of the fields. Moreover, the parties will hold a stake in the output for more than two decades.

The Iranian Oil Ministry will announce details about the terms and conditions of each oil and gas field within related tenders for foreign companies.

Here are 10 facts about 21 gas fields, Iran proposed for foreigners to take part in them, based on the IPC:

1 - Iran has offered 50 hydrocarbon fields, including 21 gas fields, of which 6 are offshore gas fields.

2 - Among offshore gas fields, none of them are developed, while only two onshore fields have been developed relatively and the remained 13 fields are totally undeveloped.

3 - The total reserves of offered gas fields are 226 trillion cubic standard feet (tcsf), sharing about 19.1% of the country's total gas reserves.

4 - Although the number of onshore fields are 2.5 times more than offshore ones, but they only holds 66 tcsf reserves, 2.4 times less than offshore fields.

5 - Developing gas fields would add more than 111,000 barrels per day of gas condensate to Iran's oil production level.

6- Developing gas reserves to add about 13.4 billion cubic feet per day (Or about 380 mcm/d) to the country's gas production.

7- It seems Iran has focused on Caspian Sea seriously for the first time, introducing a field (Sardar-e Jangal) and three blocks to be explored and developed.

8- The country's priority is developing cross-border or joint fields with neighbors.

9- The foreign contractor has to choose an Iranian partner to establish a join venture to develop a project.

10- Petroleum costs and the fee shall be paid to contractor out of the maximum 50 percent of the revenues generated from the field.

Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector and head of Trend Agency's Iran news service