South Azadegan Drilling Operations Near Completion

EghtesadOnline: The National Iranian Drilling Company's operations for drilling 40 wells in the South Azadegan Oilfield in Khuzestan Province are near completion, a deputy director of NIDC said on Monday.

News ID: ۷۸۲۹۹۴

20 June 2018

"The plan, marking a 99.7% progress, is on fast-track development and will be completed in the near future," Mehran Makvandi was also quoted as saying by the National Iranian Oil Company's news portal.

NIDC is tasked with drilling 60 wells in South Azadegan, which is being implemented ahead of schedule.

"The overall process of drilling 20 other wells in the field has registered a 54.84% progress, the development of which is among the company's priorities," Financial Tribune quoted him as saying.

South Azadegan Oilfield is located 80 km west of Ahvaz in Khuzestan Province along the Iran-Iraq border and shared by the two states. It is estimated to hold 33 billion barrels of oil in place. It is part of the West Karoun Oil Block, which holds 67 billion barrels of crude oil.

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Makvandi said his company is currently conducting other drilling operations in major oil and gas fields, including South Pars Gas Field and Kish Gas Field, the Persian Gulf's largest and second largest gas fields respectively, Azar Oilfield in the western Ilam Province and three projects in West Karun block.

"The plans, with a total value of $2.18 billion, have registered a combined 85% progress … NIDC has planned to complete all the projects by the end of the current fiscal [ends in March 2019]," he added.

Referring to the company's concentration on South Pars, Makvandi said, "NIDC is drilling 22 wells on two offshore platforms, A and C, of Phase 14. The drilling of 15 wells is 94.78% complete."

South Pars is being developed under 24 phases. The mega gas field is the world’s largest gas field shared by Iran and Qatar, covering an area of 3,700 square kilometers of Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. It adjoins Qatar’s North Field that measures 6,000 square kilometers.

Iran has vowed to boost gas production from around 400 million cubic meters per day at present to more than 1 billion cubic meters a day in two years and boost output to 1.2 bcm/d by 2020.

According to Makvandi, NIDC is accelerating drilling and maintenance operations in Azar Oilfield.

"Operations to drill seven wells in the field have made 93.46% progress … The plan on drilling three new wells and maintenance of 10 others is 82.87% complete," he said.

The official noted that Kish Gas Field's projects are also near completion.

"The operation to drill 13 wells in the field is 94.78% complete," he said. According to Mohammad Reza Takaidi, an NIDC deputy chief, the Kish project is in a good stage of development and will be completed by the yearend.

Discovered in 1968, Kish Gas Field is located 30 kilometers east of Lavan Island off the Persian Gulf. The field holds an estimated 1.3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in place and more than 500 million barrels of gas condensate, an ultra light grade of oil.

NIDC is in charge of offshore and onshore drilling activities. It provides more than 90% of drilling services needed by domestic oil companies.

The company has 73 drilling machinery, of which 68 are active in major hydrocarbon fields. Its services include well logging, cementing and acidizing, drill stem test, well testing, training, development and general services.