"Upon the completion of the venture, platform 14B will be installed and sour natural gas extraction capacity from Phase 14 will increase by 42 million cubic meters per day," Hamidreza Masoudi was also quoted as saying by Shana, the Oil Ministry's news agency.
The official added that Phase 14 is slated to produce 56 million cubic meters of gas and 75,000 barrels of gas condensates per year as of March 2019 to meet domestic gas demand and supply feedstock to petrochemical units in the Pars Special Energy Economic Zone in the southern Bushehr Province.
Masoudi noted that the completion of platform 14B, being built at Iran Shipbuilding and Offshore Industries Company's yard in Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province, is expected by October. According to the official, Phase 14 has four platforms, namely14A and 14B as main platforms and 14C and 14D as satellite ones. "Satellite platform 14D is being completed at Iran Shipbuilding and Offshore Industries Company's yard in Bushehr," he said.
Asked about platforms 14A and 14C, he noted that the former was installed in January and is extracting as much as 14 mcm per day and the latter is being moved to its location for installation. Phase 14 is also expected to produce more than 1 million tons of gas condensates, 1 million tons of ethane for petrochemical units and 400 tons of brimstone per year, according to Financial Tribune.
Pointing to the development contract of Phase 14 worth $5.25 billion, which was signed between the National Iranian Oil Company and a consortium headed by the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran, the official said the project has registered a work-in -progress rate of 82%.
Giving a breakdown on the venture, the official noted that the Iranian contractors have laid close to 230 kilometers of subsea pipelines. Operations to drill 22 wells have already been completed while the rest is underway.
According to Masoudi, no foreign contractor is involved in Phase 14 and it is the only project in the South Pars that has being undertaken by domestic experts. The South Pars mega gas project is being developed in 24 phases and except for Phase 11 that has not been developed yet, other phases such as 13, 22, 23 and 24 will become operational by the end of 2019.