President Msoud Pezeshkian and senior officials from the Ministry of Oil attended the ceremony on Saturday and awarded contracts to four major Iranian energy companies: Petropars, Khatam Headquarters, OEC and Mapna.
The company will work on projects in seven zones in South Pa to increase pressure on large gas reservoirs.
Oil Ministry news service Shana said in a report that the project will cover the installation of 42 giant rigs, which are around 420,000 metric tons (MT).
The rigs include around 14 pressure boost platforms, hosting 120 resident workers and engineers each, increasing the reservoir pressure by 1 billion cubic feet (28.3 million cubic meters) per day, adding that the project will run around 600 kilometres of underwater pipe layers.
The report states that approximately 70% of the installation and equipment required for the project will be sourced from domestic suppliers, including shipyards along the Persian Gulf Coast.
He said the project will create 17,000 direct jobs and another 50,000 will be hired in the wider supply chain.
The project has increased South Parr’s gas recovery rate from 54% to 75%, leading to approximately $780 billion worth of new revenue from natural gas and condensate production on-site, citing senior project contractors, Shana said.
Southpurs is responsible for 70% of Iran’s natural gas supply and 40% of the necessary raw materials in the country’s gasoline production sector. It covers 40 offshore drilling rigs, hundreds of wells and thousands of kilometres of underwater pipelines in 28 phases.
Gas production from the fields reached a record of 716 million cubic meters per day last month.
However, experts warn that production could drop significantly in Southpur within the next few years as pressures on the ground have fallen.
Oil Ministry officials said in early February that projects to increase pressure in Southpur would increase for 20 years.
They said the first pressure boost project in Southpur is expected to go online in 2030.
This is because the athletic section of the project has already begun with an initial investment of between $300 million and $400 million.
MP/PressTV