“The oil industry globally is intertwined with new technology and science. But in our country it has not reached the high status and is still operation-based,” Seyyed Saleh Hendi lamented.
Giving an example, he referred to gas discoveries in the Sea of Oman and said they are located at a depth of 800 meters “where drilling is very expensive,” ISNA reported.
The NIOC official noted that new US sanctions against Iran’s oil sector are indeed giving extra impetus to the development of domestic capabilities that should help reduce, to some extent, dependence on foreign firms, Financial Tribune reported.
“That notwithstanding, we seek new technologies through international collaboration,” he said without elaboration.
"There are 40 known oil reservoirs in the country, which have not been developed yet. This means our oil exploration sectors are doing better than the production and development departments.”
Between 2013 and 2017 nine gas fields were discovered with total in-place reserves of 1.7 trillion cubic meters plus five oilfields containing 6.5 billion barrels of in-place oil, the official said earlier.