Tehran, Iran, February 13
By Mehdi Sepahvand –- Trend:
Iran is going to catch up with Qatar regarding the production of gas from the South Pars/North Dome field in a short while, according to CEO of Pars Oil and Gas Company Mohammad Moshkinfam.
In 35 days, Iran will be producing 570 mcm/d of gas from the field as two damaged offshore pipelines are going to be fixed and put back in service, he told Mehr news agency February 13.
At the current time, Iran is extracting 480 mcm/d of gas from the South Pars.
The South Pars / North Dome field is a natural gas condensate field located in the Persian Gulf. It is the world's largest gas field, shared between Iran and Qatar. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the field holds an estimated 1,800 trillion cubic feet (51 trillion cubic meters) of in-situ natural gas and some 50 billion barrels (7.9 billion cubic metres) of natural gas condensates.
This gas field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, of which 3,700 square kilometers (South Pars) is in Iranian territorial waters and 6,000 square kilometers (North Dome) is in Qatari territorial waters.
The estimates for the Iranian section are 500 trillion cubic feet (14×1012 m3) of natural gas in place and around 360 trillion cubic feet (10×1012 m3) of recoverable gas which stands for 36% of Iran's total proven gas reserves and 5.6% of the world’s proven gas reserves.
The estimates for the Qatari section are 900 trillion cubic feet (25×1012 m3) of recoverable gas which stands for almost 99% of Qatar's total proven gas reserves and 14% of the world’s proven gas reserves.
On the Iranian side, gas production started from the field by commissioning South Pars Phase 2 in December 2002. Qatar had started tapping the field on its side 10 years before, in 1992.
Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh in February 2015 announced that the country would complete the entire projects it has defined in South Pars gas field before April 2018.
"That would put Iran ahead of Qatar in terms of the daily production of natural gas,” Zangeneh had said, adding, nevertheless, that Qatar would still be ahead from the viewpoint of overall production given that it started the producing of gas from the field sooner than Iran.
The Iranian oil minister then blamed the United States’ Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for having hampered the progress of energy projects in Iran.
In 1996, the US Congress and the Clinton Administration imposed heavy sanctions under the ISA on the energy sector in Iran, whose economy is heavily dependent on oil and gas incomes. Iran’s oil and gas infrastructures are as old as the oil industry itself and in need of development, for which the country needs huge investment, mostly from foreign investors.