Iran To Start South Pars Oil Production In 2016 – State Media

Iran plans to start to extract oil from the world’s largest gas field next year as part of the OPEC member’s strategy to boost its crude oil production to at least three million barrels per day, official Iranian media reported.

Ali-Reza Zeighami, manager of the South Pars oil layers project, said new wells were being drilled and would become operational in the second half of the next Iranian year, which starts in March 2016, the official news agency IRNA reported on Monday.

“In the first phase, 20,000 to 35,000 barrels of oil are forecast to be recovered from the oil layer of South Pars,” oil ministry website Shana cited him as saying.

He said seven wells had so far been spudded in the oil layer of South Pars and new rigs were being transferred to provide an accurate estimate of its hydrocarbon reserves. South Pars is shared between Iran and Qatar.

The oil layer of South Pars is estimated to have seven billion barrels of oil in reserves, IRNA reported.

Separately, the National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC), which is a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and is responsible for 83 per cent of the country’s output, plans to boost crude production to three million bpd during this Iranian year, which continues until March 2016.

Bijan Alipour, managing director of NISOC, told Shana his company planned to deploy 47 rigs for drilling development and work over wells.

Iran’s current oil production is around 2.8 million barrels per day. Sanctions have halved its oil exports to just one million bpd from 2.5 million bpd in 2012.

Iran’s oil minister has said Tehran is ready to increase oil exports by up to one million bpd when sanctions are lifted.