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By Trend

At least $20-25 billion of investment is needed for projects to avoid pressure drop at the South Pars gas field, Mohammad Meshkinfam, managing director of South Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), said.

The design of a project to maintain the pressure at the field is at last stages, Meshkinfam said, ISNA news agency reported May 27.

At the moment, a French consulting firm is cooperating with Iran in this regard, he said, adding that five options to maintain the pressure are under study.

Meshkinfam further said that no funding source is determined so far for the assets needed for project implementation.

South Pars, with about 30 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, is jointly owned with Qatar. A third of South Pars is in Iran’s waters.‎

Currently, Iran produces 500 mcm/d of gas from South Pars and after full completion of the project, the volume will reach 780 mcm/d by 2021, but the pressure in the field is expected to decrease significantly in 2023 and reach such a level that installing gas compressors will be unavoidable.

‎Last year, Meshkinfam said the Islamic Republic plans to install 20 heavy booster compression platforms in South Pars, to boost the pressure by 90 bars to produce 56 mcm/d of gas.

Currently, platforms weighing 1,500-2,000 tons are active in the field, but for installing compressors the platforms 10 times bigger than the current ones are needed. Two such compressors at each platform could increase the output by 70 percent.

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