Responding to reporters’ questions, Mr. Souri noted the pipeline would be constructed with the aim of increasing flexibility and stability in gas production from the South Pars gas field phases.

He went on to say that based an order by the minister of petroleum, Seyed Masoud Mirkazemi a 100 kilometers gas pipeline would be constructed starting from the phase 12 in Kangan region linking all the onshore gas processing plants of the South Pars gas field phases to each others.

Referring to occasional inconsistency between onshore and offshore operations and some technical problems between the two sectors as one of the challenges of POGC, Souri said: lack of flexibility in gas production is the result of separation of phases in gas processing operations.

‘By construction of the 32 inches pipeline, whenever one of the gas processing plants in Assaluyeh get out of circuit due to technical problems, its gas will be transferred to adjacent plants for processing or to oil fields for injection,’ POGC managing director said. According to the official, the gas pipeline designing will be started as of next month.    

 
Regarding the huge volume of work in the Assaluyeh, POGC head said that more than 50 thousand people would be recruited in the region, under the law half of them from local workforce.

POGC official remarked that North Pars gas field development is the second priority of the company noting our current priority is to develop South Pars gas field remaining phases as soon as possible.

‘By revenues resulting from selling gas and other products of the South Pars gas field there is the possibility to spend part of the revenues at North Pars as well as Golshan and Ferdowsi gas fields development amid expressing interest by some foreign countries to participate in developing these fields.

The South Pars field is a gas condensate field located in the Persian Gulf. It is the world’s largest gas field and is shared by Iran and Qatar. According to the International Energy Agency, the field holds an estimated 50.97 trillion cubic meters (1800 trillion cubic feet) of in-situ gas and some 50 billion barrels of condensates.

Iran holds the world’s second-largest reserves of natural gas and the third-largest reserves of oil.