TEHRAN -- An official of the Management and Planning Organization (MPO) on Tuesday said that the daily production of the South Pars gas field would hit 300 million cubic meters once all the 12 development phases of the field are complete and put the annual revenue obtained from that production at about 2.8 billion U.S. dollars.

The managing director of the MPO Department for Energy Affairs, Ahmad Davoodi, said that so far two phases of the field had been implemented with a daily production capacity of 39 million cubic meters. He stressed that once these phases are complete production capacity would increase to as much as 50 million cubic meters per day.

The South Pars gas field, which extends across the Iranian and Qatari sectors of the Persian Gulf, is currently the largest gas field in the world and belongs to both Iran and Qatar. It covers an area of 3,700 square. Iran's share is being developed in 25 phases. The first ten of these have been approved.

Davoodi said that when Phase 3 of the South Pars field goes on stream this March, production capacity would reach 75 million cubic meters per day.

"Still, the daily gas production from the South Pars field will hit 300 million cubic meters once all 12 phases of the project to develop it are complete by 2007," he said.

Davoodi stated that the contracts to develop the South Pars field are being concluded under Iran's buyback scheme, adding that the total cost of the contract would be $2.12 billion at the most.

He said that the return of the capital that has been invested in the project would be provided by the revenues from selling the condensate gas, stressing that the total return of the capital has been estimated at $4.219 billion.

"The produced natural gas will be delivered to Iran and will be used to meet domestic needs or exported," he noted.

Davoodi added that several contracts had been signed with international contractors to complete the first ten development phases.

"For Phases 11 and 12, the Economic High Council has authorized concluding deals with foreign investors," he said, adding that the deals have not been finalized yet.

Davoodi said the most important success in implementing the development phases of the South Pars gas field had been beginning exploitation of the gas in the reservoir that Iran shares with Qatar.

"The exploitation started at one million cubic meters per day last year, and it reached as much as 39 million cubic meters per day only recently," he said, expressing hope that the amount would reach 50 million cubic meters per day in the coming months.