According to Parviz Salehvand, the director of the oil field maintenance and enhanced production projects at ICOFC, implementation of these projects will come to fruition by the end of the current calendar year, which began on March 21. Therefore, it can be noted that with the completion of these projects in the mentioned fields, oil production in the fields will be raised by at least 13,000 barrels per day.

Here is an overview of the plans aimed at maintaining and enhancing crude oil production in the 3 oil fields: Danan, Saadat Abad and NaftShahr.

$7b Earmarked for Output Enhancement, Maintenance of ICOFC Fields

In December of the year 2017, the approval of plans to maintain and enhance oil production of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) under EPC-EPD contract terms was issued along with its financing, and it was put on the agenda with a credit of $7.246 billion. Based on the initial plan, the philosophy behind implementing of these plans was to maintain and raise the average production capacity of crude oil by 281,000 barrels per day during the three years of 2018-2021 compared to the average production in the first half of the calendar year of 1396 (March-September 2017). The projects entail 34 investment packages in 29 fields or reservoirs with another package focused on corporate social responsibilities.

In the subsurface section of these projects, drilling of 280 new wells and ERD (Extended Reach Drilling) and workover, completion, repair and re-drilling of 1,730 wells are envisaged. Activities regarding the surface section include building a desalination unit, an exploitation and processing unit, a collection plant, pressure boosting and gas injection facilities, flow and transmission pipelines, pump stations, turbo pumps, manifolds, construction and completion of offshore platforms and other procedural arrangements. Among the mentioned 29 fields and reservoirs, Danan, Saadat Abad, Naftshahr and Dehloran Fields are operated by ICOFC.

Parviz Salehvand, the operator of production maintenance and enhancement projects at ICOFC, said: “The production maintenance and enhancement scheme of these three fields has been put on the company’s agenda with a credit of nearly $202 million: $142 million allocated for Danan, $30 million for Saadat Abad and $30m for NaftShahr fields.”

General Field Characteristics

In Danan field, by drilling 11 new wells, daily production increased by 9,000 barrels; in Saadat Abad field, by drilling 2 new wells and repairing and completing one workover, and in NaftShahr field, by drilling 1 new well and repairing and completing 4 workovers, daily production increase of 2,000 barrels is forecasted for each of these two projects. Also, for the plan to maintain and increase the production of Dehloran field, by drilling 8 new wells and 2 effluent wells along with completion of 5 workovers, an increase in the daily production by 8,000 barrels of oil is planned for.

Starting Operations ASAP

One of the features of these projects is the presence of Iranian E&P companies in their implementation, says Salehvand. The licensing rounds for the projects were held in less than 4 months and the National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC), MAPNA Group and Global Petrotech Kish were selected as developers in these projects. Another important feature of these 3 projects was obtaining the necessary environmental permits in less than 3 months, because at the time when the plans were announced to start working, having environmental permits was a prerequisite. Accordingly, in the shortest possible time after receiving the necessary environmental permits and carrying out clean-up operations in the border areas of Danan and Naftshahr, activities of these 3 projects began.

New Oil Horizons in Danan Field

In the Danan project, based on the arrangements that were made, some obstacles to financial payments for all projects were removed, and some financial problems ahead of its implementation were solved and the process of implementing activities was expedited. In this field at the end of the Iranian calendar year 1400 (20 March 2022), four wells with a capacity of about 4,500 b/d came on stream.

It is worth mentioning that with the completion and drilling of the last well in Danan field in August, the drilling operations of wells for maintenance and enhanced oil production in Saadat Abad, Danan and Naftshahr fields have come to an end. With the completion of the drilling and workover operations of 17 wells in these fields, and with the implementation and completion of surface operations including well facilities, construction of desalination units and flow pipelines and transfer to exploitation units, it is expected that the oil production capacity of ICOFC will increase about 11,000 b/d, and the executive operations of the surface sector of the project to maintain and enhance oil production in the fields should be completed by the end of the current  Iranian calendar year ( 20 March 2023).

Regarding oil production from Danan field, Salehv and said: “The production of Danan oil field from the total number of mentioned wells was estimated to be about 9,000 b/d which is expected to increase by 11,000 to 14,000 b/d. Also, one of the highlights of the Danan field production maintenance and enhancement plan is the simultaneous 3D seismic operation of an area of ​​approximately 500 square kilometers with the drilling of wells in this field, which is remarkable in its own kind, as the simultaneous implementation of these operations has been done in order to save time and money.”

Another important feature is clean-up operation of the land from mines and war tools, while collecting seismic data without a single day of downtime.

According to him, seismography includes 4 stages of planning and engineering, data collection, data processing and interpretation, which is expected to open a new horizon with the interpretation of seismic data and drilling information obtained from new wells for the development of the oil field and production in this region.

The Danan field production maintenance and enhancement plan includes 12 work packages, 11 of which related to well drilling operations and surface operations and one package concerning 3D seismic operations. In the work packages of this field, electrification of all wells was also envisaged, and this operation is now in the final stages. The main contractor of Danan field project is Mapna Group.

Salehvand noted: “One of the work packages in this field includes construction and installation of a skid-mounted desalination unit with a daily capacity of 10,000 barrels, which is being done for the first time by a capable domestic construction company and is now in the beginning stages of installation.

NaftShahr Oil Production

NaftShahr joint oil field was discovered 60 km away from Qasre Shirin County, Kermanshah Province, western Iran, back in 1923. The first barrel of oil was pumped from the field in 1947. So far, large amounts of oil have been pumped out of the field, but activities have been implemented under EPC-EPD contracts for more production and optimal use of the available facilities.

According to Salehvand, the project is defined in the form of drilling one new well and four well workovers with a capital of $30 million, and entails engineering, implementation and goods procurement in the surface and subsurface sections and its implementation began in March 2019. Currently, the entire subsurface stage of the project has been completed with more than 2,000 meters of drilling.

It is noteworthy that NaftShahr oilfield is a specific field in terms of geological features and reservoir, which has made it one of the most complex oil fields in Iran. Despite the particularity and complexities of the NaftShahr oil field, drilling of a new well was successfully completed and reached the production stage, and it came online in August 2021 with the oil production of approximately 500 b/d.

The operator of the production maintenance and enhancement of ICOFC said about the importance of implementing the NaftShahr field development plan: “Despite the complexity of this field in terms of drilling, geology, reservoir engineering, the high risk and risks of drilling operations, and its being shared with Iraq, and the need to clean up the place of implementation of the project from the remaining ammunition from the imposed war, and despite the sanctions and constraints caused by the spread of the coronavirus, implementation of the project has been carried out by reducing and compensating the stoppages that did occur. Therefore, one of the strong points of this project has been the timely supply of subsurface equipment and the use of the existing goods of the main contractor (NIDC).”

According to the approval of NIOC, the plan was aimed at maintaining and enhancing production fromNaftShahr oil field to reach 2,000b/d. At the moment, 500 barrels of the predicted amount of output from this field have been realized, which has been added to the daily production of the field. According to Salehvand, NaftShahroilfield with an API of 40 is one of the lightest crudes produced in the country.

700-barrel Growth in Saadat Abad Oil Output

The implementation of the plan to maintain and increase oil production in Saadat Abad field with the aim of increasing the daily production capacity of this field by 2,000 barrels and also increasing the feedstock of the Shiraz refinery began in June 2019. This project has been defined in two sections, subsurface and surface, and is being developed by a domestic private company. Drilling of two new wells, completion of a workover, installation of wellhead facilities, and construction of a total of 14 km of a 6-inch oil pipeline, installation of power supply equipment and manifold development of Saadat Abad unit for connection to two new wells are foreseen in the project. Drilling of 2 new wells have been successfully completed in this field, and since early 2021, production has increased in the field by 700 b/d from one well having come online.

Physical Progress

According to Salehvand, the physical progress of Danan field is 85%, Saadat Abad field 82% and NaftShahr field 72%. The production maintenance and increase of these fields should be completed by the end of the current calendar year. With the aim of compensating for the delays, up to 8 drilling rigs were operating simultaneously in these 3 oil fields, which led to a reduction in the drilling time of the wells. For example, having a glance at the records of previous drilling operations in Danan field, one may notice that the time and cost of drillings have been reduced by about 25%.

On the other hand, one of the important issues was the clean-up of Danan and NaftShahr areas from war mines belonging to the imposed war on Iran. The clean-up operation of the region was carried out in several phases besides the fact that some border skirmishes were also reported in Iraq and near the NaftShahr oilfield during the operations.

8,000 b/d production growth in Dehloran Oilfield

Dehloran field is one of the other fields on the agenda of production maintenance and enhancement projects at ICOFC. This field is located 20 kilometers southwest of Dehloran city in the western province of Ilam and is considered a joint field. The credit earmarked for the project is $210 million.

This project is currently in the tender stage. An increase in the production of 8,000 barrels per day from this field is expected by drilling 8 new wells, drilling 2 effluent wells and completion of 5 workovers will be realized. Construction of a 15,000-barrel separation center and construction of a 12-inch pipeline with a length of 32 kilometers are also among other measures to be implemented in this plan.