Iran Eyes New Gas Ventures

EghtesadOnline: Having made inroads in the world's largest gas field in the Persian Gulf after a decade of development, Iran is moving on to other gas ventures to diversify its natural gas supplies amid hopes of a new inflow of foreign investments.

News ID: ۷۷۹۵۴۱

03 October 2017

Kish Gas Field, an offshore reservoir with about 1.3 trillion cubic meters of gas in place and more than 500 million barrels of gas condensate, is an important Iranian venture, ISNA said in a report.

Discovered in 1968, Kish gas field is located 30 kilometers east of Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf. It is planned to be developed in five phases, with the first phase reportedly making some progress.  It is the second biggest gas field in the Persian Gulf after the giant South Pars Gas Field that is shared by Iran and Qatar.

Iran plans to produce 1 billion cubic feet (28 million cubic meters) per day of gas and more than 11,000 bpd of condensate, a type of ultra-light crude oil, from the Kish deposit in the first development phase, according to Financial Tribune.

Royal Dutch Shell is seen as a top candidate for the Kish project. The Anglo-Dutch company presented the findings of its studies on the field in Tehran last month following an agreement signed late last year to study Kish Gas Field along with South Azadegan and Yadavaran oilfields in Khuzestan Province.

A top oil official said earlier in the year that Shell could win the field's development rights, as it is "the only company to have shown interest" in the Kish project.

However, Shell faces competition from Italy's Eni and Iran's Ghadir Investment Company that have signed separate agreements to study the Kish field.

Iran is currently producing about 880 million cubic meters a day of natural gas, with over two-thirds of which coming from the South Pars mega project that is being developed in 24 phases.

The government hopes to launch new South Pars phases in the next six months to meet its target of 1 billion cubic meters a day by the end of the present fiscal year in March.

But Iran's capacity to ramp up production will be further put to the test, as the country seeks to translate the world's second-largest gas reserves into a production of 1.3 bcm/d by 2022, the end of its Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan.

And second-tier gas projects will be fundamental to reaching that target, with the Kish venture alone envisioned to supply over 100 mcm/d, if all of its planned phases become operational.

Latest surveys on hydrocarbon fields show that the country's recoverable natural gas reserves have risen by 283 billion cubic meters. More than 146 bcm of natural gas were produced from South Pars in the previous fiscal year, or 400 million cubic meters daily, official data show.