IRAN - Part 2 - The Oil & Gas Fields.
Under a strategic plan adopted by the government, Iran's sustainable oil production capacity should rise from almost 4m b/d to more than 5.9m b/d by March 2010 and to 8m b/d by 2015. Iran's sustainable capacity to produce natural gas is to rise from 500 MCM/day by 2005 and to 1,500 MCM/d by 2015. Most of the capacity increases will result from development and expansion of fields by foreign and local firms under buyback contracts. Now Iran is producing 3.9m b/d. Saudi Arabia is producing more than 9.5m b/d.
Iran has more than 40 producing oilfields, of which over 27 are onshore and 13 are offshore (see table overleaf). The priority is to reverse a general decline in old oilfields, which has caused sustainable capacity to fall by an average of about 270,000 b/d per annum in recent years.
In February 2003 the Oil Ministry raised its estimate of recoverable reserves from 96 bn to 99 bn barrels of oil - with total oil in place put at 500 bn barrels - and from about 24 TCM to 26.5 TCM. This extended the R/P ratio to 72 years for oil and 230 years for gas based on present output levels. More recently, the ministry raised its estimate of recoverable oil and condensate reserves to 132 bn barrels and gas to 28 TCM.
The National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) has been considering a massive gas re-injection programme for improved oil recovery (IOR) projects, under a proposal made by Statoil and Sintef of Norway and NIOC's Petroleum Industry Research Institute (PIRI). It depends on a big increase in gas production targets. The proposal was first outlined in September 2002 in Tehran and Ahwaz by tatoil, Sintef and PIRI experts studying IOR at the Ahwaz, Marun and Bibi Hakimeh oilfields (which together having a capacity to produce 1.46m b/d). The experts are helping with a wider research programme to tap vast amounts of oil in place. These fields are old and on a natural decline for years. The experts' preliminary IOR strategy report cited "operational optimisation, capacity upgrades and improved drilling and well technologies" as important approaches, and said gas injection was "probably the IOR method with highest potential for most Iranian reservoirs". However, project manager Odd Skontorp said the volume of gas needed for injection would be "larger than currently planned". It is not known how much extra gas production is being recommended.
