Oil Output From Foruzan Field To Rise By 100,000 bpd By March 20

Tehran, Sept 9, IRNA – Oil output from the joint oil and gas field of Foruzan, the biggest offshore oil field in the Persian Gulf, will increase by 2.5-fold to 100,000 barrels per day once construction and installation of two production jackets are completed by end of the year, March 20. The project will result in more than 250 million cubic feet increase in the national gas output capacity by the year end, earning one million dollars for the country a day. Forouzan oil field, in the Persian Gulf, is shared with Saudi Arabia. Extraction of oil from the field started in the early 1970s and the field produced about 550 million barrels of oil by the end of 2002. The field experienced its peak production in late 1978 when it produced 180,000 bpd crude oil. The development of Forouzan oil field is a priority project for Iranian Oil Ministry and the field is expected to yield 5,000-10,000 bpd crude oil by the middle of the next Iranian year (starts March 20, 2013). Forouzan oil field is located 100 kilometers southwest of Kharg Island. It was discovered in 1966 with estimated in-place reserves of 2.309 billion barrels of crude. The field is known as Marjan in Saudi Arabia. Iran shares oil and gas fields with most of its neighbors in the Persian Gulf region as well as with Turkmenistan in the Caspian Sea. Energy officials in Tehran said in July 2011 that as much as 35 percent of the energy development budget will go toward development of joint oil and gas fields./end