On Monday, National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) via its upstream development arm Pedec, signed two contracts to a state-run upstream contractor Petropras to complete the long-delayed first phase development of the giant South Azadegan oil field, a part of the Azadegan field.
Under the contracts worth a combined USD1.26 billion, the two companies will boost the production capacity of the oil field from the current 140,000 bpd to 320,000 bpd within 30 months.
The work would include constructing a central treatment and export plant, a fire-fighting facility, a permanent camp, and warehouses. The treatment plant will process six million cu m of natural gas that will be utilized as feedstock in Bandar-e-Imam Khomeini Petrochemical plant in Ahvaz.
Tehran has been aiming to spur crude output capacity to more than 3.85 million bpd.
According to Iran's oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the oil field holds about 27 billion barrels in place, but only about 6% or 1.7 billion barrels are recoverable at the moment. Petropars has set the recovery factor to go up to at least 16%.
The project would include drilling 35 wells, installing 50 electrical submersible pumps on production wells, constructing and upgrading ground facilities, designing enhanced oil recovery methods, as well as laying 450 km oil and gas pipelines.
Other than that, Petropars is also responsible for constructing a USD300 million crude oil central processing plant at the oilfield with a planned capacity of 320,000 bpd.
Previously, the country has offered the Azadegan field to foreign firms along with other projects shortly after the US and EU sanctions on Iran were lifted in late 2015. However, following the US exit from the nuclear deal in May 2018 with its sanctions to Iran reimposed, the majority of the companies lost their interests.
