Earlier, the Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) and the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company had also signed similar contracts with domestic consulting firms for comprehensive study on a number of reservoirs. Study of reservoirs is nothing new in the oil industry, but entrusting them to domestic consulting firms is an initiative of the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum.

Regarding this issue, Karim Zobeidi, director of the National Iranian Oil Company's Corporate Planning Affairs, told Shana: "This plan was put on the agenda by the Minister of Petroleum, so that by seriously studying some reservoirs, the path to achieving a more efficient recovery rate in these reservoirs become smooth."

Zobeidi explained that these studies entailed detailed studies and focus on reservoir details such as fluid properties, reservoir rock properties, and other reservoir specifications, while in MDP studies, not much focus was given to such details.

What are these domestic companies?

The Iranian Offshore Oil Company signed a contract for the comprehensive study of Doroud Field with Pars Petrozagros Company; a contract for the comprehensive study of Abuzar Field with Energy Tehran Consultants Co., and a contract for the study of Foruzan Field with Farayand Engineering Company with the help of Computer Aided Process Engineering.

Comprehensive studies of Nowruz, Bahregansar and Hendijan fields are also at the consultant selection stage and will soon be awarded to Iranian consulting companies. The amount of in-place oil in these six fields is estimated at 26 billion barrels, with a recycling rate of 25 percent, and 200,000 b/d of production capacity.

The Iranian Central Oil Field Company has also signed contracts for comprehensive studies of Kangan and Khangiran gas fields with domestic companies. Accordingly, a comprehensive study of the Kangan field will be carried out by the Iranian Computer Aided Engineering Company and the study of Kangiran Field will be conducted by the Kish Oil Engineering Services Company.

The amount of gas in these two fields is estimated at roughly 1,600 billion cubic meters, with an average recovery rate of 80 percent. Moreover, the gas production capacity of these fields is more than 60 million cubic meters per day.

The National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC) has also signed a deal with Energy Tehran Company for carrying out comprehensive studies of Haftkel field and the Bangestan reservoir of Binak field. The company has also signed a deal with Magma Energy Company for studies on Mansourabad and Nargesi fields.

NISOC has also signed a deal with Kish Oil Engineering Company for Lab Sefid field as well as a deal with Iranian Computer Aided Engineering Company for Parsi field.

These reservoirs are estimated to hold 28.5 billion oil barrels in place with 26 percent recover rate and currently production capacity of 160,000 b/d of crude oil.