Developing oil fields during recent years has greatly increased Irans oil output. Minister of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said during inauguration of the first phase of Darkhoein oil field that output rise has been a great achievement of the Iranian oil industry over the preceding years.

He mentioned development of Soroush and Norouz, Balal, Salman, Darkhoein, Forouzan and Esfandiyar fields as well as oil layer of South Pars gas field as major projects implemented and have contributed 300,000 barrels pre day to Irans oil output. Soroush and Norouz oil fields, which are yielding 190,000 barrels crude per day have played a great share in the hike. The fields were destroyed during the imposed war with Iraq with their output hitting zero. Development of Soroush and Norouz oil fields started on November 14, 1999, aimed to increase production from 60,000 barrels per day to 190,000 barrels a day according to a buyback contract worth over 1.4 billion dollars, which was implemented by the Royal-Dutch Shell. In-situ reserves of Soroush field have been put at 7.5 billion barrels of which 500 million barrels can be exploited. Injecting gas into the field will increase exploitable oil to 4 billion barrels. Norouz is also capable of producing 2 billion barrels crude. Full implementation of Soroush and Norouz fields will increase total crude production in the country by 5 percent while increasing offshore production capacity by 25 percent. Production from Soroush and Norouz fields has increased offshore oil output to 820,000 barrels per day. Since the beginning of production from Norouz and Soroush fields, they have yielded 63 million barrels crude up to the present time earning 2.52 billion dollars (considering average crude price at 40 dollars a barrel). Director of the plan at Petroleum Engineering and Development Company has noted that development of the two fields has progressed 99 percent and the remaining 1 percent will be delivered to client after relevant activities are over. New production from Soroush field was made possible through drilling 10 oil wells and 2 water disposal wells while Norouz started producing 90,000 barrels per day after drilling 17 new wells. Producing 190,000 barrels per day should have been realized in last June, but problems during commissioning postponed official inauguration. Al-e Aqa, deputy managing director of Petroleum Engineering and Development Company believes that the fields produced 190,000 barrels a day on several occasions, but the 21 test day out of 28 days of continuous production were not met. Mirmoezzi, managing director of National Iranian Oil Company noted that for every percent reduction in capital return rate due to production delay from Soroush and Norouz oil fields, the Royal-Dutch Shell will be fined. He said if capital return rate was expected at 16 percent at the beginning of the project, it has reduced by 2-3 percent which is a hefty loss for the company. Robert Winer, managing director of Shell in Iran had noted that the project would be finished on time because any delay would entail hefty losses for the company. Since crude oil produced by Soroush is heavy crude, due attention should be paid to marketing efforts. Mehdi Hosseini, deputy managing director of National Iranian Oil Company stated that there has been no problem for selling crude oil produced by Soroush and Norouz oil fields. Some experts have asserted that increased acidity of crude oil produced by Norouz oil field has been less than prior figures and recent results have put the fields acidity at one percent. Recovery factor is a good index for assessing production from a field and studies carried out by Research Institute for Petroleum Industry have noted that the recovery factor for the field can stand at 42 percent. As put by Mehdi Hosseini, production from the fields had sometime surpassed 190,000 barrels per day and there is no problem for oil delivery from the fields. Soroush and Norouz oil fields will be officially inaugurated on July 26 in the presence of Minister of Petroleum as well as directors of NIOC and affiliated companies.
News ID 59208

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