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Iran Invests $150 bn in Oil Industry |
At present, studies on reservoirs, drilling and construction of undersea
pipeline have been carried out by domestic contractors.
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Ahmad Ghalebani,
Managing Director of National Iranian Oil Company |
Economic
outlook of the world projects more demand for energy and the dominant role of
oil and gas. Based on current forecasts, oil demand in the next 20 years will
be two times the past 20 years and natural gas, as the best fuel of the
century will be more in demand.
Having
151.31 billion barrels of exploitable oil reserves and 33.1 trillion cubic
meters of gas, Iran stands out among other countries.
Therefore, development plan of the country, which is based on oil, has already
started and total amount of liquid and gas hydrocarbons has been mentioned at
151 billion barrels and 33 trillion cubic meters.
A glance
at Iranian oil and gas fields will show that some of them are shared with
neighboring countries like Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab
Emirates and Oman.
The huge
South Pars gas field is shared with
Qatar
and is the biggest and the most important shared field.
Arash
gas field is shared with Kuwait while Esfandiyar, Forouzan, Farzad A and
Farzad B oil fields are shared with Saudi Arabia.
Belal
and Reshadat oil fields are close to border with water. Salman and Nosrat are
also shared with the United Arab Emirates.
Therefore, the 10th government has made development of shared oil
and gas fields a top priority. It is not only a priority of the Fifth Economic
Development Plan, but also a priority for National Iranian Oil Company in the
current Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2011).
To speed
up development of such fields, the Fifth Economic Development Plan has
allocated 72 billion dollars to their development and, at least, 20 billion
dollars of investment in upstream oil industry will be needed.
Out of
that figure, 13 billion dollars will be invested in oil fields and 57 billion
dollars in gas fields. A total of 1.5 billion dollars will be invested in
exploration.
Production from shared oil fields will increase 125 percent and output of
shared oil fields will rise by 200 percent by the end of the Fifth Economic
Development Plan. Production from South Pars gas field will reach 800 million
cu. m. per day.
Due to
importance of exploration, 40 percent of exploration by National Iranian Oil
Company will be done in border areas and shared fields and all the affairs of
this field will be given top priority.
Exploration in western and southeastern parts of the country and the Persian
Gulf will include two-dimensional and 3-D seismology, geology, gravimetry,
magnetometry, road construction drilling and production of static and dynamic
models.
During
the Fourth Economic Development Plan, six rigs were allocated to exploration
every year. The number will increase to eight rigs per year in the Fifth
Economic Development Plan and 40 percent of exploration activities will be
focused on border areas and shared fields.
$150 bn to
be invested in Fifth Economic Development Plan:
Out of 500 billion dollars
investment needed for the Iranian oil industry by 2025 about 150 billion
dollars will be invested in upstream oil industry, including 50 billion
dollars from internal resources and 75 billion dollars through foreign
finance.
On the
other hand, oil and gas projects are to be financed through energy funds.
Mellat and Melli banks have joined hands with domestic companies to launch
energy funds.
A total
of 3,000 billion tomans of bonds were issued in 2010 for upstream projects
alone.
In 2010
and by the end of March 2011, about 10.7 billion dollars were invested in
development of the remaining 14 phases of South Pars gas field. Those phases
will be fully operational by early 2015 through an investment of about 60
billion dollars.
About 6.3
billion dollars was invested in development of South Pars phases in 2009 which
proves acceleration of projects by domestic contractors.
Value of
South Pars gas field is 1.2 times higher than Iran’s entire oil revenues in
the past 100 years. If every barrel of oil is sold for an average 50 dollars
and given the current oil sales figures, total revenues earned through oil
exports in the past century will amount to about 3,600 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, value of South Pars products will be 1.2 times higher than that
figure.
South
Pars is the biggest shared gas field in the world which straddles Iran’s
border with Qatar. Eight phases of the field were to be developed by such
international companies as Total and Shell, but unilateral sanctions pushed
them out of Iran. On June 15, 2010, however, domestic companies took charge of
developing those phases.
At
present, studies on reservoirs, drilling and construction of undersea pipeline
have been carried out by domestic contractors.
Due to
all-out support from the government, contracts for the remaining phases of
South Pars will be signed with Iranian contractors. Thus, the field is being
entirely developed by Iranian specialists.
In
addition to direct advantages of developing South Pars gas field, the project
will also create jobs and cause regional development.
Using
domestic manpower when foreign companies are enforcing international sanctions
will prevent disruption of oil industry projects. Many Iranian companies are
now involved in these projects. Being a host to foreign contractors until a
few years ago, South Pars region is now seeing more of domestic companies and
apart from Phase 11, all other phases are being developed by domestic
contractors. Iran’s gas exports are expected to reach 200 million cu. m. per
day by the end of the Fifth Economic Development Plan and the country is ready
to sign long-term contracts.
On the
whole, there are countless opportunities for gas industry, including provision
of feed to petrochemical plants. At present, production and processing of gas
has reached 650 million cu. m. per day.
250 million
cu. m. gas to be injected into oil fields:
Based on early goals for gas
injection into oil fields, a total volume of 250 million cu. m. of gas will be
injected per day and the figure will rise.
During
the past year gas injection into Darkhoein oil fields started. Gas coming from
phase 6, 7, and 8 of South Pars gas field is also injected into Aghajari oil
field. At present, a total daily amount of 20 million cu. m. of gas is
injected into Aghajari which will reach 56 million cu. m. per day.
Based on
this plan, gas injection will increase the output of Aghajari field to 5
billion barrels of oil.
National
Iranian Oil Company has planned to continue gas injection during the Fifth
Economic Development Plan in order to increase pressure of domestic fields,
prevent pressure fall and waste of oil, and to increase recovery factor from
oil fields. Volume of injected gas depends on such variables as production
rate, properties of rocks, type of fluid in reserves as well as primary and
secondary volume of exploitable reserves.
On the
whole 34 gas injection projects will be implemented in oil rich Aras,
including 18 projects in southern fields, seven projects in central fields and
the rest in other parts of the country.
Development of phases, 6, 7, and 8 and construction of the fifth and sixth gas
trunk lines will be carried out to inject gas in oil fields.
Since the
Fifth Economic Development Plan aims to increase crude oil production by one
million barrels and gas production by one billion cu. m., special importance
has been attached to building upstream oil and gas industry equipment.
Building
the first national rig with export capacities and ability to work on offshore
and onshore projects, manufacturing drilling parts, transfer of output rise
technology and implementing plans for secondary oil and gas production,
especially in South Pars gas field are among research priorities of the
Iranian Ministry of Petroleum for upstream oil industry.
Iran code
assigned to 500,000 important oil industry equipments:
At present, about 70 percent
of needed parts for oil industry are manufactured and supplied by domestic
entities and about 90 of commonly used oil industry equipment have been
manufactured in the country. A plan has been in gear to assign codes to
various oil industry equipments and classify them according to a national
coding system. Based on current projections, more than 500,000 important oil
industry equipments used by oil, gas and petrochemical industries will be
assigned national codes before the end of the first half of the current
Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2011). |
