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L'Iran inaugure la dernière phase du méga-gisement gazier South Pars

AFP le 28 août 2023

Le président iranien Ebrahim Raïssi a inauguré lundi la dernière phase de l'immense gisement gazier South Pars, développé dans le Golfe depuis les années 1990.

M. Raïssi s'est rendu lundi dans la ville portuaire d'Assalouyeh (sud), où il a inauguré la phase 11 du projet lors d'une cérémonie diffusée en direct par la télévision.

Plus grande réserve de gaz connue au monde, le méga-gisement de South Pars est situé à cheval entre les eaux territoriales de l'Iran et du Qatar.

Quelque 50 millions de m2 de gaz seront extraits quotidiennement des installations de la phase 11 "après l'achèvement des puits", a indiqué le ministre du pétrole, Javad Owji, présent à la cérémonie.

Dans son discours, le président Raïssi a regretté que "les entreprises étrangères comme Total" n'avaient "pas rempli leurs obligations pour achever la 11e phase de South Pars". Il a félicité les "experts iraniens" pour "avoir terminé le projet".

L'immense champ gazier devait être développé par le français Total, la China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) et une entreprise iranienne, selon un accord de 2017 d'un montant de 4,8 milliards de dollars (environ 4,3 milliards d'euros).

Mais Total s'est désengagé du projet en 2018 après le retrait américain de l'accord sur le nucléaire de 2015 et le rétablissement de sanctions par Washington contre le secteur énergétique iranien notamment. En 2019, l'Iran avait annoncé que la Chine avait de son côté abandonné le projet.

L'Iran dispose des deuxièmes réserves mondiales de gaz, après la Russie, et des quatrièmes réserves mondiales de pétrole.

Production Starts At Phase-11 Of The World’s Largest Gas Field

By Simon Watkins - Aug 22, 2023

Iran’s South Pars gas field is one half of the world’s largest gas resource – the other being Qatar’s North Field – so any official announcement on production plans from there is a major event. It is even more dramatic if it relates to the often-delayed and exceptionally controversial Phase 11 of South Pars (SP11), which for a long time has been a focal point for proxy hostilities between West and East, as analysed in depth in my new book on the new global oil market order. Consequently, comments last week from Iran’s Petroleum Ministry that gas production has now finally started from Phase 11 has set pulses racing in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. For Moscow and Beijing, the announcement sets the seal on years of maneuvering to play integral roles in developing the world’s biggest gas reserve. For Washington, it raises questions over Iran’s genuine commitment to agreeing a new version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or colloquially ‘the nuclear deal’) in the next three months as planned.

Back on 16 January 2016 when the JCPOA was implemented, the ultimate prize for Western international oil companies was to be involved in the South Pars gas field – even more so than in Iran’s enormous oil fields. They knew that oil was coming under increasing pressure from the clean energy lobby, but they also knew that even this group regarded gas as an acceptable alternative to oil in the transition period to green energy. Additionally, despite Iran’s massive oil resources, its gas resources were even greater, and the bulk of them were concentrated in just one, huge, area – South Pars. The South Pars site stretches across 3,700 square kilometres and holds an estimated 14.2 trillion cubic metres (tcm) of gas reserves in place plus 18 billion barrels of gas condensate. It already accounts for around 40 percent of Iran’s total estimated 33.8 tcm of gas reserves (mostly located in the southern Fars, Bushehr, and Hormozgan regions) and about 80 percent of its gas production. The other part of the world’s biggest gas reserve is Qatar’s 6,000 square kilometre North Field (or ‘North Dome’), which is the foundation stone of its world-leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter status. Iran has also long held well-developed plans to use part of the South Pars and neighbouring North Pars sites to roll-out its own world-class LNG programme, as also analysed in depth in my new book.

South Pars was split into 24 phases for development, with broad production targets ranging from around 28 million cubic metres per day (mcm/d) to about 57 mcm/d – the latter being Phase 11’s target.
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Iran Looking For New Gas Reserves At South Pars

by Bojan Lepic|Rigzone Staff|Monday, December 06, 2021

Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, has started drilling operations at the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf in search of new hydrocarbon reserves.

The Pars Oil and Gas Company stated that the drilling of the new well was part of the development strategy for the South Pars field.

The strategy focuses on exploring the undeveloped areas of the field in a bid to find new hydrocarbon reserves and extend gas production.

The company stated that the drilling of an extension appraisal well in the northern part of the South Pars gas field aims to evaluate the hydrocarbon capacity of the areas outside the field’s current blocks and phases.

The head of POGC’s Oil and Gas Engineering Department Ali Akbar Majed said that the drilling of the SP-16 extension appraisal well was being done to determine the possibility of the field’s expansion. The drilling will be completed by the Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company, which was hired to carry out these operations.

According to him, the exploration and making discoveries on undeveloped parts of the South Pars joint field in an attempt to locate hydrocarbon reserves is one of the solutions outlined in a plan developed to maintain the field’s gas production. During the assessment and search for new reserves, which is the objective of this drilling campaign as well, more than one well will be drilled.

“The SP-16 well, whose appraisal objectives and evaluation has been determined in cooperation with the exploration department of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), is the first of four wells planned for drilling and evaluation of areas outside the current blocks of the field,” Majed claimed.

As for South Pars, it lies on the territorial border between Iran and the State of Qatar in the Persian Gulf. The South Pars gas field covers an area of 3,745 square miles. Iran’s territorial waters house 1,430 square miles, while the remaining 2,315 square miles, named the North Dome, are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters.

According to available data, the Iranian portion is estimated to hold almost 500 trillion cubic feet of gas and some 18 billion barrels of gas condensates.

This amounts to around 7.5 percent of the world's gas reserves and half of Iran’s gas reserves. The development of this massive field is divided into 24 phases to produce around 28 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

A deal finalized last week to develop Iran’s multi-trillion dollar new gas discovery, the Chalous field, will see Russian companies hold the major share in it, followed by Chinese companies, and only then Iranian ones, sources close to the deal exclusively told OilPrice.com. This is despite Chalous’s position unequivocally within the Iranian sector of the Caspian Sea, over which the Islamic Republic has complete sovereignty. Billions of dollars in additional capital investment are scheduled to come from financial institutions in Germany, Austria, and Italy, as the indications are that the size of Chalous’s gas reserves are even greater now than initially thought. According to one of the senior Russian officials involved in negotiating the deal: “This is the final act of securing control over the European energy market.”
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As it now stands, though, revealed exclusively to OilPrice.com, following further studies by Russia, the Chalous discovery is now seen as essentially a twin-field site, nine kilometers apart, with ‘Greater’ Chalous having 5.9 trillion cubic meters (Tcm) of gas in place, and ‘Lesser’ Chalous having 1.2 Tcm of gas, giving a combined figure of 7.1 Tcm of gas. Therefore, the new Chalous figures would give Iran a total natural gas reserves figure of 40.9 Tcm, whilst Russia – for a long time, the holder of the largest gas reserves in the world – officially has just under 48 Tcm. That Russian figure, though, has not been revised to account for usage, wastage, and gas field degradation for many years, and, according to Russian gas sources, is around 38.99 Tcm as of the end of 2020. Consequently, the Chalous find makes Iran the biggest gas reserves holder in the world.

These new estimates, on top of recent developments in the European gas market, have led to a change in the plan that had been agreed on between Iran and Russia and had remained in play up until around a month ago. The plan had been for Iran’s side of the development to be led by the Khazar Exploration and Production Company (KEPCO), with the additional principal participation of then-to-be finalized Russian companies. Following both the upgrading of the gas reserves estimates in Chalous and spiraling gas prices across Europe in the previous weeks, the new stake split in the combined Chalous twin-sites is as follows: Russia’s Gazprom and Transneft will together hold a 40 percent share, China’s CNPC and CNOOC together a 28 percent share, and KEPCO a 25 percent share only. “Gazprom will have overall responsibility for managing the Chalous development, Transneft will do the transportation and related operations, CNPC is doing a lot of the financing and providing the necessary banking facilities, and CNOOC will be doing the infrastructure parts and engineering,” said one of the sources.

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Research indicates huge new gas reserves in northeastern Iran

June 16, 2021 Tehran Times

“Obtained information from 16 exploration wells drilled in this area, along with other studies, indicate huge potential reserves in this area and the need to change the technical approach to the potential hydrocarbon resources in the South Caspian Basin,” Emad Hosseini said.

The results from the two new wells, namely Hirkan 1 and Ghezeltapeh 3, are also expected to confirm the above-mentioned studies, Hosseini noted.

According to the official, KEPCO has proposed four new projects to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), two of which have been approved to be implemented in the region.

“Among the four strategic projects proposed to the NIOC board of directors, two projects namely the two-dimensional seismicity of the Caspian Sea shore area and the management and maintenance of Iran-Amirkabir drilling platform and its supporting vessels have been approved,” the official explained.

Referring to Turkmenistan's plans for exploring gas reserves in the Caspian Sea, he continued: “Khazar Exploration and Production Company has put the two-dimensional seismicity of the Caspian Sea shore area on the agenda in order to determine the best deep drilling location.”

This project will be the first step in creating a seismic database on the challenging shore areas of the Caspian Sea, which is very important considering the existing capacities in these coasts,” the official added.

Back in June 2020, Head of KEPCO’s Department of Geology Farid Taati had said that his company was cooperating with domestic knowledge-based companies for the Caspian Sea oil exploration operations.

KEPCO, which handles exploration operations in the Caspian Sea region in northern Iran, had signed research-based deals with domestic companies in the Iranian calendar year of 1398 (ended in March 2019) to carry out exploration operations in the area.

Iran’s Huge Caspian Gas Find Is A Geopolitical Gamechanger

By Simon Watkins - Aug 19, 2021,

Iran last week revealed a huge new gas deposit located in the Iranian sector of the Caspian Sea. The ‘Chalous’ structure is to be developed with the intention of forming a new gas hub in northern Iran to complement the southern gas hub centred on the massive South Pars field.

The principal named developer of the Chalous site is Iran’s Khazar Exploration and Production Company (KEPCO) but technical and financial assistance will also come from Russia and China. If the initial estimates of the gas reserves held in the Chalous deposit are correct then Iranian gas will be able to supply at least 20 percent of Europe’s gas needs. However, the size, price, and destination of this gas will be co-ordinated with Russia, adding to the energy power that Moscow has over Europe, already a key matter of contention between Europe and its NATO partner, the U.S. According to KEPCO’s chief executive officer, Ali Osouli, the Chalous structure is estimated to hold gas reserves equivalent to a quarter of the supergiant South Pars gas field, or around 11 of its phases. South Pars has an estimated 14.2 trillion cubic metres (Tcm) of gas reserves in place plus 18 billion barrels of gas condensate and already accounts for around 40 percent of Iran’s total estimated 33.8 tcm of gas reserves and about 80 percent of its gas production. The 3,700-square kilometre (sq.km) South Pars site is part of the 9,700-square km basin shared with Qatar (in the form of the 6,000-square km North Dome) but the Chalous structure lies squarely within Iran’s sector of the Caspian Sea. This has not so far been affected by the recent disputes between the five littoral states that share oil, gas, and other rights in it: Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

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Iran Awards $1.8B Gas Field Contract to Petropars

by Bloomberg|Arsalan Shahla|Monday, May 17, 2021

Iran’s Petropars Ltd. will be awarded a $1.78 billion contract by the National Iranian Oil Co. to develop the giant Farzad-B gas field that was previously intended to be tapped by a group of Indian companies.

Petropars will produce 28 million cubic meters of gas a day from the offshore deposit within five years, according to the agreement, the Iranian oil ministry’s official Shana news service reported, with the contract to be signed on Monday. Farzad-B is estimated to hold reserves of around 500 billion cubic meters.

An Indian consortium led by ONGC Videsh Ltd. was engaged in talks with Iran to develop the field but disagreements over investment volume and gas prices delayed progress and negotiations stalled completely after the U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018.

Prior to those penalties, Iran had intended to jointly develop several major oil and gas projects with foreign energy companies as part of a push to modernize its industry and improve expertise and know-how.

Farzad-B is the latest major energy project awarded to Petropars following the exodus of foreign companies from the Islamic Republic’s oil and gas industry. Last year, it took over the development of an offshore phase of Iran’s South Pars field after its partners Total SA and China National Petroleum Corp. quit the $5 billion project because of sanctions.

Iran is priming its oil fields -- and customer relationships -- so it can increase production and exports as it inches closer to an agreement with the U.S. that could lift sanctions on its economy and revive the 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran yearly gas output up 6 pct

29 March 2021

The Deputy Director of Dispatching Operations at the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) announced a 6% increase in Iran’s annual sweet gas production, Trend reports citing Mehr.

"Fortunately, despite the embargos imposed on the country and obstacles caused by the coronavirus outbreak, growth and development did not stop in Iran and we continue to see an increasing gas output," Ahmad Kazemi said.

Addressing a video conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday, Kazemi presented a brief report on the NIGC’s dispatching center in the calendar year of 1399 which ended on March 20.

He said a 6% increase in natural gas production, which is equivalent to 15 billion cubic meters, had been distributed in various sectors, including domestic and commercial, during the year.

"Last year, we were able to deliver more gas to the production sectors and power plants; likewise, more than 5 billion cubic meters were delivered in power plants and more than 3.3 billion cubic meters were sent to major industries such as steel, petrochemicals and refineries," the official added.

According to the official, currently, 37 gas platforms are active in the South Pars offshore gas field, 20 gas refineries are being throughout the country, 39,000 km of transmission lines are operational and 395,000 kilometers of pipelines are active in the provincial gas distribution networks of the country which are responsible for supplying gas to all sectors including the domestic, commercial and other sectors.

Kazemi stated that the daily consumption of gas is currently around 350 million cubic meters per day in the domestic sector, while the figure for major industries is about 130 million cubic meters per day and for power plants is about 160 million cubic meters.

He added currently, exports account for about five percent of production, which is in accordance with the commitments and agreements signed with importing countries.

Iran Boots Out India From Huge Gas Field Development

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Oct 19, 2020

Iran has decided to use local firms to develop a large offshore natural gas field, which was discovered by an Indian company and set to be developed by a group of Indian firms, Press Trust of India reported on Monday, citing sources with direct knowledge of the plans.

An Indian consortium led by ONGC Videsh discovered the huge Farzad-B gas field back in 2008. Iran and India have since negotiated the terms of the field’s development for years, in fits and starts.

Three years ago, the Indian consortium led by ONGC Videsh offered Iran US$11 billion in investments into the Farzad-B field on the condition that the Iranian authorities can guarantee it a reasonable level of returns. Reasonable, ONGC said in 2017, was 18 percent, according to the managing director of the company’s overseas investment arm.

Negotiations between Indian companies and Iran on the development dragged on for years, with pressure building between the parties in 2017 after Iran delayed its final decision about the field several times. India responded to the delays with threats of reduced Iranian oil imports.

Iran added fuel to the fire at the end of May 2017 when it signed an initial agreement for Farzad-B with Russia’s gas giant Gazprom. The news, announced by Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, came on the back of earlier remarks that Russian energy companies may take the place of Indian sector players in Iran’s oil and gas fields.

After a few more years of stalled development talks, also because of the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s energy industry, it now looks like Iran has decided to forgo the use of foreign firms and replace the Indian consortium with domestic companies.

According to Press Trust of India’s sources, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) told ONGC Videsh in February 2020 that it planned to sign a contract to develop the Farzad-B field with an Iranian company. ONGC Videsh, however, continues to seek contact with Iran about the field, but Iran hasn’t responded to the Indian firm yet, the sources said.

Iran Reaches Production Milestone At World’s Largest Gas Field

By Simon Watkins - Apr 25, 2020

Reaching natural gas production of one billion cubic metres per day (Bcm/d) has been one of the three core hydrocarbons resource strategies of Iran since the Islamic Republic began to seriously develop the supergiant South Pars non-associated gas field in 1990, alongside producing 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil and building out a world-class petrochemicals sector. As highlighted by OilPrice.com, Iran is currently working quietly towards the oil output and petchems sector targets, but it also announced last week that it is finally to achieve its monumental and long-awaited gas production target this Iranian calendar year (ending on 20 March 2021). At the same time, it also announced that its flagship Persian Gulf Star Refinery (PGSR) – essential to Iran’s new-found gasoline self-sufficiency – is ramping up its refining capacity.

South Pars - the 3,700 square kilometer portion of the 9,700 square kilometer gas basin that Iran shares with Qatar (the North Dome field) - holds an estimated 14.2 trillion cubic meters (tcm) of gas reserves (8 percent of the world’s total and around 40 percent of Iran’s total estimated gas reserves of 33.8 tcm) plus 18 billion barrels of gas condensates. For at least two decades it has additionally accounted for around 60 percent of Iran’s overall gas production and is also central to Iran’s ambition of becoming a top-tier global player in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. Given the global significance of this resource, the South Pars field was, up until the re-imposition of sanctions by the U.S. in 2018, the focus of a superpower tug-of-war between NATO members and Russia, with both sides eager to put their best companies on the ground in one or more of the South Pars phases.

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With Russia and Chinese money, equipment, technology, and expertise available as and when required, South Pars will exceed 750 million cubic meters per day of natural gas output by 20 March, in turn bringing the country’s total natural gas production capacity to one Bcm/d, according to a comment last week from Iran Petroleum Minister, Bijan Zangane de Gaz à Sout Pars.h. He added that the first major offshore development stage of Phase 11 (now under the leadership of Iran’s Petropars) – will be spudded within the next few weeks, with the Phase’s output destined to be pumped to refineries in Assaluyeh and Kangan in the Bushehr Province, and noted that the platform jacket for the Phase is in Qeshm Island ready for installation.

According to Petropars’ plans, Phase 11 is now scheduled to be developed in two integrated and consecutive stages, with each stage containing 15 wells and the aim being the production of 56 mcm/d of natural gas plus 75,000 bpd of gas condensate and other tangential products. In addition, Zanganeh said, two 32-inch pipelines jointly stretching over 270 kilometers will be constructed and installed to ensure the onward distribution of the gas to the intended refineries.

With around US$33 billion having already been spent on the development of South Pars as a whole, according to sources in Iran spoken to by OilPrice.com last week, a very high percentage of the work on all phases has already been completed, with just a handful not having a 95 per cent plus completion rating as of now. Of these relatively under-developed phases, Zanganeh stated earlier this year that Phase 14 would come online by the end of the current Iranian calendar year on 20 March 2020 and, according to a source who works very closely with the Petroleum Ministry, this objective was only missed because of the sudden onset of the coronavirus in Iran as elsewhere. As it stands, the third platform of the offshore field is already loaded for installation in its designated spot, and, once operational, the platform is designed to produce 14.1 mcm/d of natural gas.

Its adjunct phase – 13 (SP13) - targeted to produce 56 mcm/d of gas on its own, saw two platforms (B and D) become ready for an operation just prior to this development and since then, according to its operator at the end of March – Iran’s Pars Oil and Gas Company – the last platform (13C) of the offshore project has been successfully installed in the Persian Gulf. In sum, 38 offshore wells have now been drilled in the offshore sector of SP13 located in the northwestern part of the gas field, with the delivery of gas to the onshore refinery scheduled to begin when an offshore pipeline becomes available. In preparation for this, a fourth train is now ready, allowing for the processing of up to the full 56 mcm/d of nominal gas capacity, which would then be fed into the Iran Gas Trunkline (IGAT) system.

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ENERGYAPRIL 5, 2020 / 2:40 PM / 21 DAYS AGO
Daily gas production at Iran's South Pars field tops 700 mcm/day - official

April 5 (Reuters) - Daily gas production at Iran’s South Pars field reached more than 700 million cubic meters (mcm) per day in the last Iranian calendar year, the head of the Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) said on Sunday, according to the official IRNA news agency.

“The daily gas production capacity from the shared South Pars field reached more than 700 million cubic meters last year,” Mohammad Meshkinfam said.

The last Iranian calendar year began in March 2019 and ended last month.

South Pars, which Qatar calls North Field, is the world’s largest gas field and is shared between Iran and Qatar.

Iran starts natural gas extraction from offshore rig at South Pars

TEHRAN (NIOC) – WEBWIRE – Monday, December 30, 2019

Iran has officially started extracting gas from an offshore field in the Persian Gulf to add some 14.2 million cubic meters (mcm) a day to its current output of more than 800 mcm.

The extraction had started overnight in the third drilling rig at phase 14 of the South Pars, the largest gas field in the world which is shared between Iran and Qatar.

Mohammad Mehdi Tavassolipoour, phase 14th development plan executor, said production from the 14B drilling rig would reach a full capacity of 14.2 mcm within the next few days, adding that the gas produced in the field will be transferred through a five-kilometer pipeline to a refinery in the adjacent Phase 12 of the South Pars.

“As cold season draws near and the country needs winter fuel, the 14B rig came on line based on a pre-existing schedule to meet a part of the growing demand for gas,” said Tavassolipoour.

The start of production at the new rig in the South Pars would bring Iran’s output from the offshore section of the giant gas field to 42 mcm (1.5 billion cubic feet) a day. Total production from South Pars is planned to reach 650 mcm by March as Iran seeks to completely outdo Qatar in the shared gas field.

It comes nearly six months after Iran successfully installed the drilling rig, a super-size structure hailed at the time as a sign of Iran’s capability to counter the harsh American sanctions on the country’s energy sector.

Additional raw materials that would be obtained from gas production at the rig include some 20,000 barrels per day of condensates, some 100,000 tons a day of sulfur, 250,000 tons per year of liquefied petroleum gas and similar amount of ethane, said Tavassolipoour.

Iran to develop Middle East’s largest gas storage facility

November 29, 2019

National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) has awarded the development project of Shourijeh gas storage facility in the northeastern Khorasan Razavi Province to an Iranian company based on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract, IRNA reported on Friday, quoting a senior gas official as saying.

According to the Head of National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) Hassan Montazer Torbati, following the development of the South Pars gas field and the increase in the country’s gas production capacity, construction and development of the country’s natural gas storage facilities has become a top priority.

Montazer Torbati noted that with the new storage projects going operational, national gas network’s sustainability and resilience will be increased, especially in the cold seasons which are peak demand periods.

According to the official, currently seven projects for construction and development of natural gas storage facilities are underway in different provinces across the country.

He mentioned some of the projects saying, NIGC is going to hold a tender for awarding the second phase of Sarajeh storage facility.

As the first natural gas storage facility in Iran and the Middle East, Sarajeh storage facility was officially inaugurated in January 2014 near Qom, 124km south of Tehran.
As one of the world’s top gas producers, Iran is planning to expand its underground natural gas storage capacity to ensure that enough natural gas is available during peak demand periods to avoid electricity supply shortfalls in the future.

According to NIGC plans, the capacity of the two storage facilities, Sarajeh and Shourijeh, is planned to increase to over seven billion cubic meters in near future.

L'Iran annonce la découverte d'un nouveau gisement de gaz

AFP parue le 13 oct. 2019

Un nouveau gisement de gaz d'une capacité estimée à environ 538 milliards de mètres cubes a été découvert dans le sud de l'Iran, a rapporté dimanche l'agence officielle Irna.

Cette quantité représente environ 1,6% des réserves prouvées actuelles du pays en gaz naturel.

Le gisement est situé dans la province de Fars, à une soixantaine de kilomètres au nord d'Assalouyeh, important centre pétrochimique sur le Golfe.

L'Iran était en 2018 le troisième producteur mondial de gaz naturel derrière les Etats-Unis et la Russie, selon la dernière édition du "Bilan statistique de l'énergie mondiale" publié chaque année par le groupe pétrolier britannique BP.

Le pays détient les deuxièmes réserves prouvées de gaz au monde, estimées à 33.900 milliards de mètres cubes, selon l'Organisation des pays exportateurs de pétrole (Opep).

A huge gas reserve has been discovered in Iran’s Southern province of Fars, after a year of extensive exploration in the region.

9 oct 2019

Head of the National Iranian Oil Company Exploration Directorate (NIOCEXP) Seyed Saleh Hendi confirmed the revelation about a massive gas reservoir being discovered in the Southern Iranian province of Fars, adding that the accomplishment was achieved after a year of toiling explorations in the region.

According to reports, explorers hit high gas flows in the depth of 3900 meters, and early estimates are speculating that the reservoir is containing a volume of gas equal to 16 years of consumption in metropolitan Tehran.

Local officials told FNA that further details will be disclosed by the Managing Director of the NIOC in the near future.

Late in August, the NIOCEXP had found a new oil reservoir in Dezful in the Southwestern province of Khuzestan.

Iran to Build LNG Park with 3mln-Ton Capacity: Oil Minister
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the country plans to construct an LNG park with an annual capacity to produce three million tons of liquefied natural gas.
October, 07, 2019

“We are planning to enter the LNG industry tapping into domestic capabilities and with the help of Iranian companies,” Zanganeh told Tasnim.

“We have a plan to build an LNG park by constructing mini LNG (plants) that will have a capacity of three million tons, ... which will be reached with (production by) small units,” he added.

Asked about the participation of domestic companies in the construction process of the LNG park, Zanganeh said domestic companies will be investors but the issue of construction is a different matter.

Last month, Zanganeh had said that the country’s extraction of gas from the South Pars gas field would reach 750 million cubic meters per day by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 2020).