Iran Signs Several Contracts to Develop 6 Oilfields
“Today, we are honored to sign one of the most important and largest oil contracts,” said Head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Mohsen Khojasteh Mehr who was also present in the endorsement ceremony.
The contracts, inked on the occasion of the 73rd anniversary of the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, are aimed at developing six oil fields and adding 350,000 barrels of oil to the country’s daily production by relying on domestic expertise.
The first contract was for the development of Iran’s largest joint oil field, Azadegan, which had been left undecided for years.
Azadegan oil field is located in West Karoun, 80 kilometers west of Ahvaz in the vicinity of Iraq’s Majnoon field.
The Azadegan field development project is ongoing with the drilling of 185 new wells, out of which 60 were recently put into operation during a ceremony attended by Iran’s President Ebrahim Rayeesi in southwestern Khuzestan Province.
At present, the oil extracted from the field each day is processed at the West Karoun exploitation unit and carried to the West Karoun pumping station.
The second deal was for the second phase of the Azar oil field development project.
Azar is a complicated field in terms of geological structure, making the drilling operations extremely challenging. Azar oil field is located in Ilam Province, western Iran.
The third contract was for the development of the second phase of the Masjed Soleyman oil field.
Masjed Soleyman, which is home to the oldest oil field in Iran and the Middle East, is located in Khuzestan Province.
CNPC International (CNPCI), a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation, carried out the first phase of the project under a buyback contract and the Iranian experts will do the job in the second phase, indicating Iran’s progress in the exploration and production (E&P) field in the upstream sector of the oil industry.
Masjed Soleyman’s oil in place (OIP) is estimated at 6.2 billion barrels. So far, around 1.3 billion barrels of oil have been recovered from the field.
The contracts for the development, production, and exploitation of Soumar, Saman, and Delavaran fields located in the operational area of the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company (ICOFC), western Iran, were also signed according to the terms and conditions of the Oil Ministry’s new contract model, namely the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC).
South Pars gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate. The field is divided into 24 standard phases.
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