Since opening of the first well of the platform, gas extraction from the platform will reach 28 million cubic meters (one billion cubic feet) a day within two days.
Director of the South Pars Phases 20 and 21 Offshore Project at the IOEC Motaleb Afshari said implementation of the projects for operation and exploitation of phase 21 of the platform in the joint field took 87 working days. "This is while, based on commitments of the IOEC to the employer, the platform was to be operational in 110 working days.
The hook up operations and launching of phase 21 platform of the joint field of South Pars are now going on properly. The phase 20 platform was installed on its jacket in the Persian Gulf on November 12 in an unprecedented record of one hour and half.
The project for development of phases 20 and 21 in South Pars gas field, aimed at enhancing recovery from South Pars gas field to the level of 56.6 million cubic meters of sour gas a day (two billion cubic feet), was entrusted to a consortium in 2010. Implementation of the two phases is still underway. The consortium consisted IOEC and Oil Industries' Engineering and Construction (OIEC).
The project for development of the two phases is implemented in the EPC form, using Iranian manufacturers and contractors.
The IOEC, as maritime contractor of the phases, has undertaken the projects at a value of 724 million dollars. Parts of the project for construction of two maritime platforms include 22 wells 105 kms from Assaluyeh coastlines, two 32-inch pipelines for gas transfer and two four-inch pipelines and other side facilities.
The goal behind development of phases 20 and 21 of South Pars is daily shipment of 50 million cubic meters of sweet gas to nationwide network to address domestic need, daily production of 75,000 barrels of gas condensates, 400 tons of sulfur, and annual production of 1.05 million tons of liquid gas as well as one million tons of ethane gas to secure feedstock for the petrochemical industries'.
South Pars gas field is one of the biggest independent gas sources worldwide, lying on Iran-Qatar joint maritime border in Persian Gulf. The field stretches on 9,700 square kilometers of land and Iran's share is 3,700 kms out of the total. On this basis, the field has 14 trillion cubic meters of gas along with 18 billion barrels of gas condensates, which constitute for more than eight percent of the world total gas reserves and close to half of Iran's gas reserves.
Qatar started gas extraction from South Pars in 1989 and Iran started the operation as of 2011 actually. As the current government took office in 2013, the policies for development of phases of South Pars and narrowing down the gap with Qatar were prioritized by the Ministry of Petroleum. Since 2014, phases 12, 15 and 16 and parts of phases 17 and 18 of South Pars were put into operation.
This year, there are plans to operationalize the remaining phases, namely phases 17, 18 and 19, which is equal to two standard phases, and phases 20 and 21 so as to dramatically narrow down the gap of gas exploitation with Qatar. In not far future, the production of the two countries will equal.
