South Pars looks to the long term

With the 38 phases associated with Iran’s South Pars gas field nearing completion, focus has shifted to maintaining production stability amid pressure concerns

Total cumulative output from Iran’s supergiant South Pars gas field—the second and third phases of which came into production in 2002—is now around the 2tn m³ mark and has increased rapidly in recent years. Earlier this year, President Hassan Rouhani said production from the 23 upstream projects already in operation had reached 750mn m³/d, up from 280mn m³/d in 2013. With state oil firm NIOC aiming to reach 1bn m³/d as quickly as possible, a drilling campaign is ongoing at the offshore Phase 11 (SP11). Total and China’s CNPC signed a contract for SP11 in 2017, before pulling out after the US withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal a year later. 9tn m³ – Remaining South Pars recover