SHANA � The caretaker of South Azadegan Oilfield's development project says a 50,000 b/d increase in crude oil output of the field has been planned by Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC).

According to National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) website, Touraj Dehghani, caretaker of the field's development project at PEDEC, said his company is considering signature of a deal with a leading European oil company for developing the field.

He said the increase will be made possible in the first half of the next Iranian calendar year beginning on March 21.

Dehghani underlined the field's massive development potentiality, adding production capacity of the field can reach 300,000 b/d in a 30-month period provided that the needed efforts are exerted for its development.

He added: "Since the decommissioning of the Chinese developer of the field in 2014, the development of the field with the help of Iranian companies has been on the agenda, and studies show that our performance compared with foreign companies in terms of saving time and money is not only efficient, perhaps in some areas we are ahead of them, and this indicates the need to believe in the ability of Iranian companies."

"The economic mechanism for the development of high capacity fields is set in a way that, after investing in the short-term period, the plan enters the production stage and the economic return," said Dehghani, referring to the governing structure of the development of huge oil fields in the world.

Dehghani further added that about 120 wells have been drilled in the field so far.

"In total, we are seeing more than 100,000 barrels of oil produced in the South Azadegan field today, which is a record by itself," the official added.