TEHRAN, Jan. 20 (MNA) Iran forecasts a big jump in its natural gas exports in the Iranian year 1394 (March 2015-March 2016), the Iranian deputy oil minister for planning affairs said on Sunday.Mansour Moazzami told IRNA that a number of prioritized gas projects will come on stream in the next Iranian calendar year 1393 (March 2014-March 2015), including five phases of the South Pars gas field development plan.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has called for allocating as capital and equipment as necessary to complete the development of the South Pars gas field in the shortest possible time.
He has emphasized that the priority should be placed on phases 12, 15, 16, 17, and 18 of the gas field. Iran is currently producing 300 million cubic meters of gas per day from the South Pars field.
The South Pars/North Dome field is a gas field located in the Persian Gulf. It is the worlds largest gas field and is shared by Iran and Qatar. The fields recoverable gas reserves are estimated to be equivalent to 215 billion barrels of oil. It also holds about 16 billion barrels of recoverable condensate.
The South Pars field, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of total world reserves.
In May 2013, the former managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company, Javad Owji, said Irans gas export revenues is projected to hit $10 billion, from currently $3.5 billion, in the next Iranian calendar year, which starts on March 21, 2014.
Iran will witness a change in the revenues of the country from crude oil to natural gas, Owji said.
He pointed to the countrys goal to triple gas shipments to some of its neighbors, saying, By signing new deals with Turkey and Iraq, Iran will increase natural gas exports to about 100 million cubic meters by next year from a current 35 million.
In April 2013, IRNA quoted Owji as saying that Iran exported 8.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas, worth $3.5 billion, in the past Iranian calendar year.
He also said that the country imported 4.5 billion cubic meters of gas, worth $1.8 billion, last year.
Gas imports dropped by 50 percent year on year, he noted.
By Mehr News Agency
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