‘Action plan’ underway to boost postwar gas production: Minister
An “action plan” has been launched to ramp up natural gas extraction from onshore fields, Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said as the country faces a growing gas shortage exacerbated by damage sustained during the recent war.
Paknejad said that alongside ongoing operations at South Pars, the world’s largest gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, an emergency program to boost output from onshore gas fields had been drawn up and entered the implementation stage, IRNA reported on Tuesday.
The initiative covers all fields operated by the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company (ICOFC), Iran’s second-largest natural gas extractor after state-run Pars Oil and Gas Company, which develops the giant South Pars field.
“Based on the plan, we will use all available capacities to increase gas production, including the collection of associated petroleum gas (APG), and all ICOFC fields will see higher output,” Paknejad said.
APG or flare gas is a by-product in oil and gas facilities that is burned via flare stacks due to a lack of required installations.
The ICOFC develops 87 oil and gas fields in 18 provinces and contributes about 25% of Iran’s total natural gas production.
South Pars is the backbone of Iran’s energy system, supplying around 70% of the country’s gas needs. However, the field’s processing infrastructure was heavily affected during a 40-day war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran in late February.
In mid-March, an Israeli air strike damaged gas processing facilities in the southern port of Asaluyeh, knocking two refineries out of operation and destroying fuel storage tanks.
A lawmaker said last month that the raid caused about $4 billion in damage to facilities in Asaluyeh.
Before the attack, Iran was extracting more than 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas per day from its fields, including 730 million cubic meters (mcm) per day from South Pars.
Paknejad said earlier in June that the strike wiped out 230 mcm per day of gas processing capacity, of which 30 mcm had been restored over the past two months.
The remaining 200 mcm of lost processing capacity accounts for nearly 22% of Iran’s total daily gas production capacity of about 900 mcm per day. The action plan appears aimed at making up for part of the mismatch between gas production and consumption before winter arrives, when demand typically surges.
Iran had already been facing a daily gas shortfall of 300 mcm per day before the damage to the Asaluyeh facilities.