A senior Iranian oil official said on Saturday that the country expects its natural gas production capacity from the South Pars gas field to increase by at least 70 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) in the near future.
“By the end of this fall, Iran’s gas output from the South Pars gas field will reach 500 million cubic meters per day,” Managing Director of Pars Oil and Gas Company Mohammad Meshkinfam told the Tasnim News Agency.
He said Iran currently produces 430 million cubic meters of gas per day from the field, adding that 70 million cubic meters will be added to its daily natural gas output within the next 45 days.
The Iranian official further said that the field’s total output is expected to hit 530 million cubic meters per day by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2017).
Iran sits on the world’s second largest conventional gas reserves after Russia. The bulk of the country’s gas reserves lie in South Pars gas field in Persian Gulf waters.
South Pars covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters.
The gas field is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.