Iran is planning to increase gas extraction from South Pars Gas Field to the same level extracted by Qatar this year, a top official was quoted as saying in an Iran Daily report.

Iran is extracting 270,000 bpd of oil from the joint oilfields, added Mohammad Shariatmadari, vice president for executive affairs at South Pars, according to the report, which cited Irna.

The country is now producing up to 3.8 mbd of oil and is exporting 2.3 mbd, he revealed.
He said that natural gas condensates production has reached 580,000 bpd.

Iran has begun investing $5 billion in the petrochemical sector and aims to build 12 more petrochemical complexes across the country, he said, highlighting that the country is now producing eight million litres of Euro 4 gasoline a day and will become a gasoline exporter by March 2017.

Non-oil exports during March 20-June 20 this year showed a 36 per cent increase in terms of weight and a 21-per cent rise in terms of value to reach $16 billion against the $13.4 billion for the same period in 2015, he explained.

South Pars oilfield to begin production in March

Meanwhile, Ali Kardor, managing director of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) state that production from an oilfield of the South Pars complex will begin by March 2017, the newspaper reported.

Iranian companies involved in the development of the first phase of the South Pars aim to produce 35,000 barrels of crude oil per day, he added.

He said the drilling of wells of the first phase have been completed and oil production from the phase will begin by March 20, 2017, after the installation of floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) and wellheads.