Dubbed the world’s most abundant gas field since its discovery in 1971, this reservoir contributes to 19% of global known gas reserves.
While Qatar successfully banked over $42 billion in 2022 alone from South Pars, Iran has faced challenges, extracting merely a fifth of its share. Qatar Energy, an industry titan in liquefied gas, plans to boost annual LNG production from 77 million tons to 126 million tons by 2027, directing a whopping $29 billion investment.
Staggeringly, the South Pars field initially had 51 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, with Iran and Qatar owning 14 and 37 trillion cubic meters respectively. This vast reserve can potentially yield 70% of its total, triple that of the United States, the current top gas producer globally. The field is also a reservoir of 50 billion barrels of gas condensates.
They’ve since mined over 2.8 trillion cubic meters of commercial-grade methane. Iran’s extraction, plagued by opacity and unreliability, stands at a claimed 2 trillion cubic meters of raw gas, with its composition still under debate.
Annually, Qatar transforms 114 billion cubic meters of the South Pars gas to LNG, shipping about 20 billion cubic meters abroad, and retaining 36 billion cubic meters for domestic use. Iran, on the other hand, depended on this field for about one-third of its domestic consumption, exporting 18 billion cubic meters to Turkey and Iraq.
Qatar’s vision saw them partnering with global oil magnates, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Eni, in 2017, resuming halted development projects from 2005. They are set to excavate 65 billion cubic meters of gas and 450,000 barrels of gas condensates annually by 2026. Recent collaborations also include a $10 billion pact with Technip to inaugurate two gas liquefaction plants in Qatar.
Iran’s trajectory has been less promising. Last year, its South Pars reservoirs’ pressure plummeted to 120 atmospheres. With declining pressure, production is poised to reduce by 10 billion cubic meters annually. Due to Iran’s controversial global activities and the subsequent international sanctions, its progress in the gas field has faced substantial impediments. Major companies like Total have rescinded their contracts, and Iran’s technology deficit and decreasing production rates are glaring.
In an alternative reality, Iran, possessing the globe’s second-largest gas reserve after Russia, could be a global gas exporter titan. Yet, today, Iranians grapple with winter gas deficits, resulting in factory shutdowns and a forced switch to the environmentally detrimental mazut fuel.
MEK Iran (follow us on Twitter and Facebook), Maryam Rajavi’s on her site, Twitter & Facebook, NCRI (Twitter & Facebook), and People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran – MEK IRAN – YouTu
