Iran is ready to double natural gas production by 2017, even if the western sanctions are not lifted, Khamid Reza Araki, Director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), said.
“We plan to increase natural gas production up to 1 billion cub.m. a day within the next three years,” reported PRESS TV channel. It will be achieved at the expense of growth of production on four sections of the biggest gas field Southern Pars, where production is planned to be increased up to 100 million cub.m. a day.
The growth of natural gas production will allow Iran increasing its export, which now totals 30 million cub.m. a day. At present the biggest Iranian gas buyer is Turkey. Since April 2015 Iran will start gas export to Iraq via the newly built 270-km-long gas pipeline.
Iran has agreed to export up to 25 million cub.m. of gas a day to Iraq. The new gas pipeline will allow increasing profit from gas export by $3.7 billion. Gas from the Southern Pars will be used by Iraq as a fuel at the power stations.
* Southern Pars is the Iranian part (50%) of the world biggest oil and gas field of the same name located in the central part of the Persian Gulf, which is shared by Iran and Qatar. The field was discovered in 1990. Its total resources are estimated at 28 trillion cub.m. of gas and 7 billion tons of oil. Iran extracts 300 million cub.m. of gas a day from the field.
