Iran on April 16, 2017, inaugurated a project to recover crude oil from the oil layer of the supergiant South Pars Gas Field.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani launched the project via a video conference in Iran's oil hub Assalouyeh.
Iran is now recovering 35,000 b/d of crude oil from the offshore gas field's oil layer.
Crude production from the field began on March 20, the day Iran celebrated anniversary of nationalization of its oil industry.
The project is one of the few projects directly administered by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
South Pars is part of a huge offshore field, shared with Qatar in the Persian Gulf.
The field is estimated to hold about 8 % of the world’s natural gas reserves.
South Pars is divided into 24 standard phases, each is projected to produce 25 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas per day.
The 5 newly inaugurated phases, namely 17-21, will add 150 mcm to the country’s current daily gas output of about 570 mcm/d to push Iran’s gas extraction from the joint field up to equate that of Qatar.
These phases will also add to Iran’s production and export of gas condensate, LPG, and ethane.
The South Pars’ oil layer was discovered in 1992. It is estimated to hold between 1.5-4 billion barrels of oil.
It is planned to reach an output capacity of 35,000 bpd in the 1st phase.
