South Pars, Realization of National Demand
Bijan Zangeneh, Minister of Petroleum
South Pars, which is the largest jointly owned gas field in the world, is instrumental in energy supply in Iran. The discovery of this gas field, holding 50% of Iran's total gas reserves and 8% of world's total, dates back to the 1980s; however, its development under 28 phases just started in 1997. South Pars started producing gas in early 2003 when its development phases 2 and 3 came on-stream. Three more phases became operational until the end of the tenure of the 8th administration in 2005.
When I left the Ministry of Petroleum in 2005, five development phases of South Pars were fully operational and as many other phases were more than 60% complete. When I visited South Pars again in August 2013, only those five incomplete phases had been completed to reach production stage and no new phase had become operational.
In a first step, it was decided to classify the South Pars phases based on their degree of priority. Implementation and application of professional management to the projects and establishment of project management system were among the most important tools that were envisaged.
Under the aegis of relentless endeavors by staff and oil service workers, the first step was taken firmly to make arrangements for the implementation of projects to develop South Pars. The Ministry of Petroleum staff were mobilized in those days for the development of South Pars development phases. Despite tough conditions, everything went ahead smoothly and after one year and a half, Phase 12 of South Pars, the largest gas production project, became operational in March 2015. That was celebrated by Iranians who were poised to start the Persian New Year. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed this great achievement thereby relieving the staff boosting motivations for more work.
What has changed South Pars once more in recent years has been the use of project management knowhow as the missing link in the South Pars development. To that effect, supervision on such parameters as price, quality and timeframe were taken into consideration in contracts. Unbridled project cost hikes and unjustified delays were prevented.
As a result of such management, despite restrictions in access to financial resources, development of South Pars went ahead on schedule and gas production from this supergiant reservoir more than doubled from 240 mcm/d in 2013 to more than 500 mcm/d now. As new development phases are becoming operational, Iran hopes to outdo Qatar in terms of recovering gas from the offshore field they share.
Enhanced recovery from jointly owned fields and protection of this national asset has turned into realization of national demand. We are doing our utmost to respond to this demand. That is just happening in South Pars and God willing we will in the near future outperform our neighbors in operating other oil and gas fields we share with them.