Iran ramps up development at oilfield shared with Iraq

Iran has accelerated development activities at an oil reservoir it shares with neighboring Iraq, aiming to achieve maximum production from the field.

News ID: 2002300

A contractor working for the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) announced on Tuesday that the second phase of the Azar oilfield development project had officially begun, with plans to boost crude output by 30,000 barrels per day (bpd), Press TV reported.

According to Keyvan Yarahmadi, the project includes drilling 19 new wells in the Azar oilfield. He added that additional operations in the field, such as acid fracturing, pump installation, and pipeline construction, will start soon.

The Azar oilfield, located in Iran’s western Ilam province, is geologically connected to Iraq’s Badra oilfield. It contains an estimated 2.5 billion barrels of oil, of which around 400 million barrels are considered recoverable.

In March 2024, NIOC signed approximately $13 billion worth of contracts with domestic companies to develop oilfields shared with Iraq. Among them was a 20-year, $1.036 billion agreement awarded to the Sarvak Azar Engineering & Development Company for the second phase of the Azar oilfield project.

Iran has intensified its efforts to develop joint oilfields with Iraq in recent years, particularly as Iraq continues to rely on major international oil companies to advance its side of the shared reservoirs.

The largest of the shared fields is the Azadegan oilfield, a 1,500-square-kilometer reserve in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, which extends into Iraq’s Majnoon oilfield. Azadegan is believed to be the world’s tenth-largest oilfield, with an estimated 32 billion barrels of oil.

Iran’s increasing reliance on domestic companies for petroleum projects comes as US sanctions, in place since 2018, have restricted the country’s access to foreign investment and technology./mehr