TEHRAN- National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) has dug and completed the digging operation of 107 oil wells in the West Karoun oilfields, Alireza Laiji, the company’s deputy managing director, has announced.

Stressing NIDC’s major role in the implementation of the key projects, the official said that conducting 137,900 meters of digging operation to dig 70 wells in Azadegan oilfield (one of the five fields of West Karoun) is one of the prominent operations by this company.

West Karoun oilfields, which Iran shares with Iraq at the western part of Iran’s southwestern region of Karoun, include five major fields namely North Azadegan, South Azadegan, North Yaran, South Yaran, and Yadavaran.

West Karoun holds great importance for the country’s oil industry since according to the latest studies, its in-situ deposit is estimated to be 67 billion barrels containing both light and heavy crude oils, and therefore it could have a big impact on Iran’s oil output increases in the future.

With the fields fully operational, their output could add 1.2 million bpd to the country’s oil production capacity.

The first phase of an oil transmission project which is going to send the oil from West Karoun fields to the country’s export terminals was officially launched in mid-August, 2020.

As reported, the mentioned transmission line in the first phase has the capacity to transfer 460,000 barrels of heavy crude oil as well as 254,000 barrels of light crude on a daily basis.

The transmission route in this project is going to send oil from the West Karoun pumping station to a middle station, which is Omidieh pumping station, and then to the Bahregan and Jask terminals as the final destinations.

The mentioned project includes operations for transferring oil from North Azadegan, South Azadegan, Yadavaran, and Darkhovin to West Karoun Pumping station, in addition to transferring North Yaran oil to Jofair exploitation unit and then to the West Karoun station.

With the development of Phase 2 of this project, which is currently underway, the capacity of the mentioned transmission line is going to increase to more than one million barrels per day.

Holding 70 onshore and offshore drilling rigs as well as equipment and facilities for offering integrated technical and engineering services, the National Iranian Drilling Company accounts for a major part of drilling exploration as well as appraisal/development wells in Iran.

As previously announced, the company has dug over 240 oil and gas wells across the country in the past two years.

NIDC has dug and completed the digging operation of 87 oil and gas wells during the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-December 20, 2020), according to the managing director of the company.

Abdollah Mousavi has said that the drilled wells consisted of 22 development wells, one appraisal well, 62 workover wells, and two exploratory wells.

He said currently 17 drilling rigs are being relocated to operational areas.

NIDC is conducting digging operations in 10 provinces of the country, the official noted.

MA/MA