TEHRAN – Head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has said his company plans to increase the country’s oil production capacity to 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd) from the current 3.8 million bpd, Shana reported.

Speaking on Tuesday in the signing ceremony of a contract between NIOC and a domestic company for increasing the recovery factor of low-yield oil wells, Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr said 900,000 bpd of the mentioned capacity is going to be realized through recovery-improvement projects.

According to the official, there are currently 6,000 low-yield wells in the country, among which 700 have been selected to be handed over to capable domestic companies for revival.

Khojasteh-Mehr said according to NIOC’s reviving program, the Petroleum Industry Innovation and Technology Park, a company responsible for the Oil Ministry’s innovation and technology projects, has been put in charge of selecting the candid companies and $500 million has been allocated for this purpose.

Petroleum Industry Innovation and Technology Park will supervise and coordinate works by domestic startups and small companies on low-production oil wells.

“We have assessed the risk of the wells and identified and examined them, based on which they have been categorized as high-, medium-, and low-risk wells; every company can be awarded up to five wells for reviving according to their ability,” the NIOC head explained.

On Tuesday, the head of Petroleum Industry Innovation and Technology Park signed the first contract under the framework of the NIOC reviving program with a domestic knowledge-based company named Diaco Energy.

The mentioned program is part of the company’s efforts to boost its daily output and exports of crude oil despite U.S. sanctions that have targeted both Iran’s oil sales and its investment in the development of new oilfields.

The signing of the contract with Diaco Energy comes two months after the NIOC denied rumors that it will use the services of Russian and Chinese companies to revive low-production or inactive oil wells in Iran.

Oil Ministry figures show reviving a low-production oil well costs around $1 million, around 90 percent cheaper than developing a new oil well.

EF/MA