Iran’s Gas Output Up by 12% in 9 Months


Iran’s Gas Output Up by 12% in 9 Months

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s production of natural gas over the first nine months of the current Iranian year (March 21 - December 21, 2014) has witnessed a 16-billion cubic meter (bcm) increase compared to the same period last year, a senior gas official announced.

Hassan Montazer Torbati, the planning director at the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), said that the volume of the country’s gas output over the mentioned period has reached 158 bcm.

He added that the figure has increased by 16 bcm, showing a 12 percent rise, compared to the same period last year.

Torbati also announced that Iran’s gas exports over 288 days of the current year have risen to about 8 billion cubic meters, showing a 10 percent increase compared to the same period last year, in which the figure stood at 7 bcm.

Recently, Iran has begun to extract sour gas from the offshore platform of the Phase 15 of its giant South Pars gas field.

The offshore platform of Phase 15, consisting of 11 wells, pumps sour gas into onshore refineries through an undersea pipeline.

The sour gas extracted from phases 15 and 16 is treated in an exclusive sweetening unit before being injected into the country’s national gas network.

The South Pars gas field, whose development has been divided into 28 phases, is located in the Persian Gulf straddling the maritime border between Iran and Qatar. It is estimated that the Iranian section of the field contains 14 trillion cubic meters of gas and 18 billion barrels of condensates in place.

South Pars is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar. The larger field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran's territorial waters (South Pars) in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, referred to as the North Dome, are in Qatar's territorial waters.

Iran is now holder of the world’s largest natural gas reserves. It has an estimated 1,193 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves and the world’s fourth-biggest oil deposits of 157 billion barrels, according to BP Plc (BP/)’s Statistical Review published in June 2014.

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