The contract to complete the development of South Azadegan field was signed with the aim of increasing the daily production capacity of the field to 320,000 barrels of crude oil in 30 months and within the contract amount worth $961 million and IRR 1,183 billion.

Touraj Dehghani, PEDEC CEO, and Hamid Reza Masoudi, the CEO of Petropars, signed the document in Tehran on Monday. The document was signed in a ceremony held in the presence of Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh.

The project entails drilling 35 wells, installation of 50 downhole ESP pumps, completion of 8 manifolds, completion of two intermediate separation plants, construction of 328 km of flow pipelines, 45 km of communication pipelines and 65 km of gas and crude oil transmission pipelines from the CTEP to the West Karun Pumping House and NGL 3200.

The parties also signed a $300 million contract for the construction of a CTEP (with a daily processing capacity of 320,000 barrels); the largest oil and gas processing unit in the country, which is scheduled to be built within 30 months.

It is worth mentioning that the West Karun Exploitation and Desalination Unit and the Skid Mounted Processing Unit are the current capacities for Azadegan oil refining. The CTEP is being built to add to the field’s processing capacity.

Thus, the total value of the contracts signed today between PEDEC and Petropars is $1,261 million and IRR 1,183 billion.

The contracts will complete development of the joint field with 206 wells and 320,000 barrels/day of crude oil as well as 200 million cubic feet of gas per day.

The development of the South Azadegan joint field, which is located in the West Karun region, near the Iraqi border and about 80 km west of Ahvaz, began in 2014 when the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed a deal with a Chinese company. However after foot-dragging and failure of the Chinese firm to complete the project, NIOC expelled the company.

Today, the field’s production capacity has reached 140,000 b/d which was only 45,000 b/d back in 2013.

So far over 171 wells have been spudded in the field besides construction of 2 separators, 257 km of flow pipelines, 90 km of transmission pipelines and 23 km of communication pipelines.