The project will produce 14 million cubic meters per day of sour gas in three years, the Oil Ministry news service Shana reported.
Gas will be transferred to the offshore platform of Phase 12 of South Pars Gas Field and after processing will be piped to the phase’s onshore refinery via an undersea pipeline.
Based on the deal, POGC is employee of the contract and will carry out reservoir studies, Financial Tribune reported.
Petropars, the contractor, will drill 8 wells in the offshore field, launch wellhead jackets and build/install a topside as well as a seabed 20km pipeline.
Belal, a field shared with Qatar, straddles the maritime boundary between Iran and Qatar in the Persian Gulf.
It is located east of the giant South Pars, 90 km southwest of Lavan Island. The field is estimated to hold 170 billion cubic meters of gas in reserve.
Petropars was founded in 1998 to contribute to the development of vast energy resources. It is one of the country's leading contractors of upstream oil and gas projects.
Bypassing Sanctions
“This and other contracts show that the (US) sanctions have not stopped us. Our oil, gas and petrochemical industries are functioning,” Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said at the signing ceremony.
US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from 2015 nuclear deal, signed between Iran and six world powers, in May 2018 when all International Atomic Energy Agency reports indicated that Iran was complying with the deal. Washington imposed sanctions on Iran in what is called a ‘maximum pressure campaign’, targeting its key economic sectors, namely oil, banking and shipping industries.
“I do not want to exaggerate. But the US cannot bring Iran’s oil export to zero. The sanctions have not brought us to a halt,” he was quoted as saying.
Speaking to reporters, Zanganeh responded to the recent OPEC Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee talks for deeper output cuts in Abu Dhabi. "Those who have disturbed the market should fix it themselves."
He said the market’s reaction to deeper supply cuts by OPEC+ needs to be assessed to ensure the plan’s effectiveness.
"We have to test the waters in the market and assess its response," Zanganeh said when asked whether the oil market could be fixed by removing 1.8 million barrels per day.
Regarding South Pars, he said all platforms in 27 standard phases of the major gas field will be in place by March 2020. Refineries of the gas field, except for Phase 11, will come on stream and produce gas with maximum capacity.
Referring to the petrochemical sector, he said production would reach above 100 million tons by 2022.