Offshore staff
TEHRAN – National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) is considering producing helium from the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf.
According to Mousa Souri, managing director of Pars Oil and Gas, a foreign company has completed a feasibility study and will submit its findings to NIOC.
Souri, speaking to Iranian news service Shana, said helium is associated with natural gas and would require separation facilities. But, extraction and refining would not involve implementation of sophisticated technologies.
Iran claims that South Pars’ helium reserves are the largest in the world. Qatar is thought to be planning helium extraction from its share of the field.
In a separate report, Souri said he expected five new phases of South Pars to come onstream during the second half of the Iranian calendar year, which begins on March 21. These are Phases 12,15-16, and 17-18.
Souri added that he expected drilling of wells into theSouth Pars oil layer to take around six months to complete. Production will be stored in a leased floating offshore storage tank.
2/29/2012
