Recovery from South Pars Oil Layer
Oil recovery from the oil layers of South Pars gas field, which is jointly owned by Iran and Qatar, was high on the agenda of the administration of President Hassan Rouhani as soon as he took office in 2013. Production from the oil layer recently started at a ceremony attended by President Rouhani. This is the first time that Iran is extracting oil through floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit. Normally, recovery from an oil layer starts at the rate of 5,000 b/d before reaching 35,000 b/d in five to seven days.
As soon as the capacity of FPSO reaches a certain level, oil tanker will dock to load oil cargoes. After that, Iranian people's longtime dream of South Pars oil recovery and export will come true after three decades.
Homegrown Oil Structures
Many officials have been saying that construction of platforms and oil structures has been indigenized. Iranian contractors have been installing the most sophisticated platforms in oil and gas facilities.
Bijan Zangeneh Iran's petroleum minister has recently heaped praise on domestic companies like "Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company" (IOEC) for their significant contribution to installation of platforms in South Pars gas field.
In the 1990s, Iranian companies were able only to build jackets weighing up to 500 tones. But under the current circumstances, inspection, engineering, purchase, construction, equipment installation, loading, carriage, offshore installation, steering operations and maintenance of offshore oil and gas platforms have been nationalized ,and Iran is now able to build and install platforms weighing up to 5,000 tones. Years of sanctions and absence of foreign companies empowered Iranian contractors and provided the country's oil sector with a chance to carry out offshore pipe-laying, procure commodities, do coating and handle basic and detained engineering. That is why the processing platform superstructure of the oil layer of South Pars was installed on time. This superstructure was installed on a 1,300-tonne substructure in the oil layer. The substructure is 79 meters high and measures 28 meters in length and 26 meters in width. The superstructure, weighs 890 tones, measures 32 meters wide, 35 meters long and 20 meters high. It has a gathering and processing capacity of 35,000 b/d of oil. The platform has been fully designed, built and installed by Iranian engineers. Petroiran Development Company (PEDEC) and SAFF Offshore Industries Company have been the two Iranian companies involved in the installation of the superstructure. Sadaf 3000 floating sheerleg helped install the processing platform.
Development of the oil layer of South Pars was largely dependent on our access to FPSO. These vessels which are the best remedy for difficult projects play a very significant role in the oil industry and have been taken into consideration in recent years. Thanks to their production, storage and offloading capacities, they are specifically used in areas without sufficient infrastructure for oil and natural gas production.
An FPSO vessel is designed to receive hydrocarbons produced by itself or from nearby platforms or subsea template, process them, and store oil until it can be offloaded onto a tanker or, less frequently, transported through a pipeline. FPSOs are preferred in frontier offshore regions as they are easy to install, and do not require a local pipeline infrastructure to export oil. FPSOs can be a conversion of an oil tanker or can be a vessel built especially for the application. A vessel used only to store oil (without processing it) is referred to as a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel.
Oil has been produced from offshore locations since the late 1940s. Originally, all oil platforms sat on the seabed, but as exploration moved to deeper waters and more distant locations in the 1970s, floating production systems came to be used.
The first oil FPSO was the Shell Castellon, built in Spain in 1977. Today, over 270 vessels are deployed worldwide as oil FPSOs.
Floating production, storage and offloading vessels are particularly effective in remote or deep water locations, where seabed pipelines are not cost effective. FPSOs eliminate the need to lay expensive long-distance pipelines from the processing facility to an onshore terminal. This can provide an economically attractive solution for smaller oil fields, which can be exhausted in a few years and do not justify the expenditure of installing a pipeline. Furthermore, once the field is depleted, the FPSO can be moved to a new location.
Iran decided many years ago to develop the oil layer of South Pars in a bid to outdo Qatar. To that end, Iran made efforts to have FSPO, but due to tough sanctions it was impossible.
Two years have passed since the oil layer of South Pars became ready for operation. This project has recently come on-stream. It was a landmark event to see oil flowing from the world's largest gas reservoir. Compared with Qatar, Iran has been slow in developing its sector of South Pars, but Iran's accelerated efforts, doped with FPSO, could set a precedent.
The oil layer of South Pars is estimated to contain more than 14 billion barrels of oil in place. Oil recovery from this layer became possible after a production platform was installed to extract oil from seven wells. Three more wells are planned to be spudded.
The start of oil recovery from South Pars is important from a variety of aspects, but the most important one is the start of competition in oil production with Qatar by applying the state-of-the-art technology.
A buyback service contract was signed with PEDEC in 2004 for this project. The project for the development of the South Pars oil layer was among few projects undertaken directly by National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Operated by Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), the project was initially expected to come on-stream in 19 months, but the project was delayed for a variety of reasons.
The contract with POGC was terminated and an independent organization, South Pars Oil Layer (SPOL) was established in 2014 under direct authority of NIOC's managing director. SPOL managed to bring the project into operation.
The oil held in this three-formation layer has an API gravity of 21.