Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 11
By Gazenfer Hamidov – Trend:
An Iranian oil ministry official says that a European oil firm will take part in development project of the country’s South Azadegan oilfield.
Touraj Dehghani, the operator of the field’s development project at Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC), said that the company plans to increase South Azadegan oilfield’s output by 50,000 barrels per day, the official website of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) reported.
Dehghani said that a deal is signed with a leading European oil company in this regard, without unveiling the company’s name.
He further expressed hope that the projected output increase would be materialized in the first half of the next Iranian fiscal year (to start in March 2018) through implementation of the deal.
Iran has invested $21.5 billion so far to develop its joint oil fields with Iraq, including North and South Azadegan, Yadavaran, and North and South Yaran fields in a bid to boost crude output from the oil block.
The country also eyes to attract leading foreign firms to the block’s development projects through its newly designed oil and gas contracts, called Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC).
Earlier, Iranian oil ministry announced that it is preparing to hold a tender for the development of South Azadegan oil field over the current fiscal year (to end March 2018).
It was also announced that invitations were sent to 29 international companies, including France’s Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Italy’s Eni, Lukoil and Gazprom of Russia, Danish conglomerate Maersk, China’s CNPC and Sinopec, Austria’s OMV and Schlumberger, which approved a bid in the country’s oil and gas tenders to participate in the tender for developing South Azadegan oil field.
Without unveiling any details about the tender issue, Dehghani said that the production capacity of the South Azadegan oil field can reach 300,000 barrels per day within the first phase of the field’s development in the next 30 months.
At least 120 wells have been drilled so far at the field, he said, adding that currently, Iran produces over 100,000 barrels of crude oil from the South Azadegan field per day.
Currently, 19 rigs are active there. The second phase of the field’s development project would add other 280,000 barrels of crude oil per day to the output of South Azadegan, but not in the near future.