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The first floating production. storage and offloading (FPSO) unit. purchased by the National Iranian Oil Company. is on its way toward the oil layer of the giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf. managing director of Petroiran Company said on Saturday.
The $300-million FPSO unit was built in Singapore and will be deployed above the South Pars` oil layer in the near future. Roham Qasemi was quoted by Mehr News Agency. The official said the vessel is now sailing in the Persian Gulf.
FPSO is a floating vessel used by the offshore oil and gas industry for the production. processing and storage of hydrocarbons. It is designed to draw hydrocarbons or receive crude oil from nearby platforms and process and store it.
The main advantage of an FPSO is in deep waters where laying a pipeline is usually not cost effective or even practical.
According to Qasemi. several wells have been drilled in the oil layer of South Pars and the ground is prepared to extract crude oil from the shared field.
It is expected that connecting the wells to the vessel via pipelines would take two months and as soon as the piping operation is complete. the extraction will begin.
The South Pars` oil layer is located 130 kilometers off Iran`s coast in the Persian Gulf with an estimated 7 billion barrels of oil in place. Iran expects to start production with 20.000-35.000 barrels a day.
Iran is lagging behind Qatar in terms of oil extraction from South Pars. The small Arab neighbor. which started extracting oil from the field in 1991. has already drilled more than 300 wells with the help of international oil giants. It has reportedly extracted more than 1 billion barrels of crude from the joint field during the last 25 years.
