South Africa Willing to Build GTL Plant in Iran
South Africa's minister of energy has expressed her country's willingness to help build a gas-to-liquid (GTL) plant in Iran.
Tina Joemat-Pettersson, who met with Iran's Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh in Tehran on March 4, said South Africa would like to buy crude oil and petroleum products from Iran.
Joemat-Pettersson headed a delegation to Tehran ahead of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's planned visit to South Africa.
She discussed with Zangeneh investment by South African companies in Iran.
After their meeting, Zangeneh said: "In case there is will in Pretoria, purchase of cargoes of crude oil and oil products could come to fruition sooner than other affairs because South Africa meets all its needs through imports."
He said that South Africa may need to import 100,000 b/d of crude oil.
Noting that South Africa is willing to provide its required crude oil via its state-run oil firm, Zangeneh said: "South Africa must use the oil purchased from Iran where it would not be subject to decision-making by foreign companies."
He said that South Africa's PetroSA and Iran's National Petrochemical Company (NPC) had held direct talks.
"South Africa owns GTL technology and we held talks with them to that effect in previous years, but due to lack of agreement on the price of gas we failed to reach any conclusion," said Zangeneh.
"In case of agreement on the price, we are willing to cooperate. If there is a favorable perspective for investment it will be possible for Iranian companies to build partnership with them, and we will supply them their required gas at an agreed price," he added.
Joemat-Pettersson also met with NPC managing director Marzieh Shahdaei and spoke about South Africa's potentialities for cooperation with Iran in the petrochemical industry.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Shahdaei said: "Fruitful talks were held on investment and the South African private sector's cooperation with Iran's petrochemical industry. We talked about construction of a GTL unit by this country."
"Earlier, [Iran's] Research Institute of Petroleum Industry and a South African company had reached agreement about the construction of a GTL unit,and studies had started for building such a unit, and today it was agreed to finalize the [plan for the] construction of the unit utilizing the technology of the South African company and to draw up a draft agreement," she added.
For her part, Joemat-Pettersson expressed hope that Iran and South Africa would sign an agreement for GTL plant construction during President Rouhani's future visit to South Africa.
She said South Africa's private companies were willing to cooperate with Iran and conduct joint venture deals with Iran's private entities.
IOOC Starts Installing Cyrus FPSO
The managing director of Iranian Offshore Oil Co. (IOOC) has announced the start of operation to install CYRUS Floating Production, Storage and Offloading Vessel (CYRUS FPSO) in the South Pars oil layer.
"As soon as the vessel is anchored to the seabed, the unit will start extracting hydrocarbon from subsea wells via pipelines," Hamid Bovard said.
FPSOs is a ship-shaped vessel, with processing equipment aboard the vessel's deck as well as hydrocarbon storage units. After processing, an FPSO stores oil or gas before offloading periodically to shuttle tankers or transmitting processed petroleum via pipelines.
According to Bovard, FPSOs can be disconnected from their moorings, thus they are optimal for areas that experience adverse weather conditions. One of the main advantages of an FPSO is in deep waters where laying a pipeline is usually not cost effective or even practical.
"Several wells have been drilled in the oil layer of South Pars and grounds are ready to extract crude oil from the jointly owned field," he said, noting that 25,000 b/d to 30,000 b/d of oil would be produced in the first production phase.
"It is expected that connecting the wells to the vessel via pipelines would take one month and as soon as the piping operation is complete, extraction will begin."
Bovard said the oil layer of South Pars contained more than 14 billion barrels of oil in place.
"The start of production from the oil layer of South Pars is of significance from several aspects, most importantly because of competition with the Qatari rival," he said.
Bovard said the FPSO lacked gears, which make its docking difficult. However, he added, IOOC staff could handle it with precision.
Countdown in Persian Gulf Star Refinery
Mohammad-Hossein Peyvandi, CEO of Tamin Petroleum & Petrochemical Investment Co. (TAPPICO) has said that Persian Gulf Star Refinery is set to come on-stream in March.
He referred to Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh’s efforts made for the completion of the refinery, saying: “We hope that the first phase of this refinery will start producing gasoline by the end of this [calendar] year and the second and third phases will be completed by the end of the [calendar] year 1396 (in March 2018).”
Peyvandi highlighted TAPPICO’s 49% share in the giant project, saying once this national project has come online, Iran will become self-sufficient in euro-grade gasoline production.
He added that the products of this project would first help meet domestic needs before entering foreign markets in two years’ time from now.
Peyvandi went on to say that Marjan methanol project would be completed next calendar year, adding: “By operating this project, some 500,000 tons will be added to the production capacity of this company.”
He said that Ilam petrochemical project would come online in March or April 2018, adding that TAPPICO would see its production capacity increase significantly in one year.
Peyvandi said construction of Fanavaran petroolefin and Siraf petroolefin projects would start simultaneously.
“Having enough feedstock – including one million tons from Fanavaran methanol and 500,000 tons from Marjan petrochemical plant – TAPPICO is fully ready to operate the second phase of Fanavaran petroolefin project to convert methanol to propylene with a view to boosting the country’s propylene production capacity,” he said. TAPPICO possesses a 60% share in Fanavaran petroolefin project in Mahshahr.
Regarding the production process in Siraf petroolefin project, he said this project would be designed so that naphtha would be directly inserted into olefin furnace for polyolefin production or conversion of naphtha to euro-5 gasoline.
“With the implementation of Fanavaran petroolefin project, 5.3 million tons will be added to the country’s methanol production capacity over two coming years and the country’s methanol production will rise to 10 million tons,” said Peyvandi.
25 Studies Submitted to NIOC
A deputy head of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has said that foreign companies have started submitting the results of their studies on Iranian oil and gas fields to this company.
"NIOC has so far received the results of 25 studies conducted by the relevant international companies," Gholam-Reza Manouchehri said.
Addressing Iran-Norway conference on upstream oil and gas technology and development cooperation, he said Norwegian oil companies can cooperate with Iran’s oil industry in various areas including investment, and implementing methods of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and improved oil recovery (IOR).
Manouchehri said Iran's nuclear deal with six world powers created appropriate conditions for international companies to get involved in Iran's oil industry.
"We have had good negotiations with oil companies in Europe, China, Russia and East Asia in the upstream oil sector," he added.
"We do not want to be merely a buyer of foreign commodities and equipment," said Manouchehri.
Reiterating NIOC's intention to transfer cutting edge technologies into the country, he said: "Manufacturing equipment jointly [with Norway] could be also on the agenda."
Manouchehri said after the nuclear deal took effect in January 2016, international companies, including Norwegians, voiced readiness to operate offshore drilling, ECP and equipment manufacturing projects in Iran.
He cited South Azadegan, oil layer of South Pars, Phase 3 of Darkhoein, Sohrab, Band Karkheh and Arvand as examples of such opportunities for investme
Azadegan Tender to Include North and South Sections
Azadegan oil field is to be put out to tender for development in an integrated form which will include both its northern and southern sections, a senior official said.
Nouroddin Shahnazizadeh, CEO of Petroleum Engineering and Development Company (PEDEC), said the integrated tender for Azadegan would be held in the near future within the framework of new-style oil contracts.
He said that five memorandums of understanding had been signed with Iranian and foreign companies for the development of this field.
"National Iranian Oil Company has signed MoUs with Japan's Inpex, France's Total, Malaysia' Petronas, [Royal Dutch] Shell and Iran's Toseh Energy Naft Novin Afagh Kish Company. The results of studies conducted by Inpex and Total have been submitted," he said.
Shahnazizadeh said South Azadegan's output would reach 85,000 b/d by March, up from the current 51,000 b/d. He added that Azadegan would be producing 110,000 b/d of oil by May.
Regarding the second phase of development of Yadavaran oil field, he said: "Iran is currently recovering 115,000 b/d of oil from Yadavaran and the second phase of this field will be put to tender."
Shahnazizadeh said production from oil fields located in the West Karoun area would exceed 300,000 b/d by March. He broke down the figure as follows: South Azadegan (85,000 b/d), North Azadegan (75,000 b/d), North Yaran (30,000 b/d) and Yadavaran (115,000 b/d).
He said that Azar oil field, a jointly owned reservoir, would start supplying 15,000 b/d in March, which would reach 30,000 b/d in May and 65,000 b/d in 2018.
"Therefore, we will be recovering 320,000 b/d from jointly owned oil fields" by March, said Shahnazizadeh.
He said that plans were under way to recover 25,000 b/d of oil from South Yaran oil field, adding: "In the first stage, 10,000 b/d will be extracted from this field."
"Given an output hike of 15,000 b/d from Azar field, 25,000 b/d from South Azadegan field and 10,000 b/d from South Yaran field, total oil production from Azadegan, Yaran, Yadavaran and Azar will reach 370,000 b/d next spring," said Shahnazizadeh.