Iran and China last week started drilling operations in Phase 11 of Iran’s supergiant South Pars non-associated natural gas field officially, oilprice.com reported.
Gas recovery from the resource will commence in the second half of the next Iranian calendar year that begins on 21 March 2021, the report continued.
This comes as the long-stalled Phase 11 development supposedly saw the withdrawal of all Chinese involvement in October 2019.
South Pars is the world’s largest gas field, covering an area of 3,700 square kilometres of Iran’s territorial waters.
Ordering the official beginning of the drilling operations for the first well of Phase 11, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh emphasised that the Islamic Republic is also able to export 2.3 million barrels of oil on a daily basis, saying: “Increasing oil production is Iran’s right and we don’t need anyone’s permission to do so.”
“If sanctions are removed and the necessary resources are provided to rehabilitate some of our older wells whose production has been reduced, the exports of 2.3 million barrels of oil per day can be achieved,” he said.
READ: China pulls out of Iranian gas field development project