Iran Starts Moving Giant Platform to South Pars Gas Field

The Fars news agency said in a Monday report that the SPD11A, a 76-meter rig jacket that weighs 2,257 metric tons, had been successfully loaded onto a ship for transport to Phase 11 of South Pars.

It said the rig has been built in 15 months in the shipyards of the Iran Marine Industrial Company, known as SADRA and located in the province of Bushehr, with an investment of 13.8 million euros.

The platform will be installed in South Pars in a 45-day process starting in late October, said the report, adding that the rig will begin drilling six wells in the area in January.

Drilling will take two years before the wells can start gas production, it said, adding that once the wells are ready, Phase 11 of South Pars will reach a maximum production of 28 million cubic meters per day.

Phase 11 is the most complicated of all 28 phases in the Iranian side of the South Pars, the world’s largest gas field, which straddles the maritime border between Iran and Qatar.

A consortium of international and domestic companies led by French energy giant Total was commissioned to develop Phase 11 before Iran came under US sanctions in 2018.

However, Iran announced in August 2023 that it had started production of gas from Phase 11 using the technological capacities of domestic companies.

South Pars is responsible for 70% of Iran’s natural gas supply and 40% of the feedstock needed in the country’s gasoline production sector. It covers 40 offshore drilling rigs, hundreds of wells, and thousands of kilometers of underwater pipelines.