Azar oilfield development project makes significant progress
The development project of Azar oilfield, in western Iran has witnessed significant progress, said the project’s operator at Iran’s Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC).
Keyvan Yarahmadi further said that the oilfield development project has shown a physical progress of 78 percent, according to Trend News Agency.
Azar, one of the joint fields with Iraq, spans an overall area of 482 square kilometers to the southeast of Mehran in the western Iranian province of Ilam.
The field is estimated to hold 2.5 billion barrels of in-situ oil. The volume of possible oil reserves to be extracted from Azar field is estimated to be around 400 million barrels.
He said that the field’s daily production capacity will reach 60,000 barrels next year.
The field’s output capacity is to reach 65,000 barrels per day in the first phase of the development project, he said, adding that based on the first phase plan, 17 wells must be drilled in the field, of which 13 wells have so far been completed.
Yarahmadi further said that construction of the field’s Central Processing Facilities (CPF) — a production unit — is 50 percent complete. He hoped that the facility will become operational as soon as possible.
Operating capacity of the CPF is 30,000 bpd in early production stage of the oilfield and 65,000 bpd in final production stage.
Azar oilfield’s output currently stands at 30,000 barrels per day.
In July 2017, Russia’s Gazprom signed a cooperation agreement with Iran’s Oil Industries’ Engineering and Construction (OIEC) on the development of oilfield. In December 2017, the two companies submitted their joint plan to National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to develop the field.
Iranian oil sector officials say that Azar is a specific oilfield and the most challenging field in terms of drilling. Oil from the field contains a high amount of H2S which leads to corrosion in equipment and pipelines.
In 2016, Iran for the first time implemented acid fracturing operation in the Azar field in order to increase its oil recovery rate.