Iran invites foreign firms to take oil from South Pars

Iran’s South Pars oil layer and three gas fields will be offered to foreign investors at a conference in London where Iran has planned to unveil its new contract formula, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has quoted an energy official as saying.

The conference planned for December is aimed at attracting international investment into Iran’s oil and gas sector which has $185 billion worth of projects up for grabs, according to the NIOC.

North Pars, Golshan and Ferdowsi gas fields are among nearly 50 projects which will be put up for investment under the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) model, Managing Director of Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), Ali Akbar Sha’banpour has reportedly said.

The North Pars field in the Persian Gulf is estimated to hold 57.1 trillion cubic feet of sour gas. Golshan holds more than 50 trillion cubic feet of gas and is predicted to yield 2 billion cubic feet after development. They are all offshore fields.

Largest gas reserves

The South Pars oil layer lies within the world’s largest gas field and is estimated to hold 7 billion barrels of oil in reserves.

According to the NIOC, Petroleum Ministry officials have said that up to 35,000 barrels per day of oil could be recovered from the layer in the first phase.

The NIOC notes that Mehdi Hosseini, head of Iranian Ministry of Petroleum’s Oil Contracts Revision Committee, said earlier in August that Iran hoped to boost crude production to 5.7 million barrels a day.

Iran Petroleum Contract

IPC is replacing buyback deals which required the host government to pay the contractor an agreed price for all volumes of hydrocarbons it produced.

Under the IPC, the NIOC will set up joint ventures for crude oil and gas production with international companies which will be paid with a share of the output.

Iran holds the largest natural gas reserves and fourth largest oil reserves in the world.

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