Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug.31
By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend:
Iran has started collecting 28,000 cubic meter per day (mcm/d) of associated gas from the Salman field, an Iranian official told Trend on condition of anonymity.
Salman is a joint field between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, which has been producing more than 2 mcm/d of associated gas for more than a decade, but it is being totally flared due to the lack of equipment to collect and deliver it to Iran's refineries in Asaluyeh.
Currently the restricted amount of collected gas is delivered to Sirri Island (island in the Persian Gulf belonging to Iran), but an undersea pipeline from Salman field to Asaluyeh would be completed by March 2017, the official said.
The raw gas of Salman will be sweetened in refineries of South Pars gas field in Asaluyeh.
Iran is also developing the Salman field to increase the gas output volume to 2.8 mcm/d in coming months by drilling new wells, he said.
Iran currently produces 47,000 barrels of oil crude per day from this field.
National Iranian Oil Company and UAE Crescent Petroleum signed the 25-year contract in 2001.
Based on the contract, Iran was supposed to export unrefined natural gas from Salman gas field to the United Arab Emirates. However deliveries were delayed as oil prices rose and some officials and politicians in Iran called for a revision to the gas pricing formula.
The UAE-based energy company Dana Gas said in 2014 that an international tribunal had issued a favorable ruling in the dispute over a natural gas supply contract between its affiliate Crescent Petroleum and Iran.
The tribunal ruled that a 25-year contract for National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) to supply gas to Crescent was valid and binding on both parties, and that NIOC has been obligated to deliver gas since December 2005.
Previously, Iranian media outlets quoted the industry minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh as saying that Iran was fined $18 billion over the case.