Iran says it will overtake Qatar in production of natural gas from a major field shared between the two countries within the next three years.

According to the reports, Minister of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zangeneh has emphasized that the country will complete all the projects that have been defined in South Pars gas field before April 2018.

He said: “That would put Iran ahead of Qatar in terms of the daily production of natural gas.”

Nevertheless, he said, Qatar will still be ahead from the viewpoint of overall production given that it started the producing of gas from the field sooner than Iran.

Zangeneh blamed US-led sanctions on Iran for slowing the progress of Iranian oil and gas projects. However, he emphasized, Iran has been able to push ahead many projects – specifically in South Pars – in face of the sanctions.

He added: “Currently, phases 12, 15 and 16 and also a part of phase 17 have been put on stream and over a period of less than two years, seven production platforms were launched simultaneously.”

“Even our colleagues in the Energy Ministry could not believe we would be able to provide the current volume of natural gas to them. The amount of gas delivered to the Energy Ministry [for production of electricity] in December was four times higher than the same period last year.”

The minister said the sanctions have caused the expenditures for completing each of South Pars phases to soar to above $3.5 billion. He added that the sanctions have even made supplying the required equipment for the projects difficult.

South Pars – called the North Dome by Qatar – is one of the world’s largest gas reservoirs. It is believed to hold an estimated reserve of 51 trillion cubic meters of in-situ natural gas and some 50 billion barrels of condensates. The Iranian section of the huge field has been defined into 29 projects or phases. About half of the phases have already been completed and operations to bring the rest on stream are currently underway.

SS