TEHRAN (Iran News) –‘NIOC prepared to boost oil output to pre-sanction levels within a month’. National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has taken all the necessary measures and is ready for boosting oil output to the pre-sanctions level within a month, a senior official with the company announced.
“Precise weekly, monthly and quarterly planning has been made to restore oil production to pre-sanctions level, and if sanctions are lifted, most of the country’s oil production will be restored within a month,” Farrokh Alikhani, NIOC’s deputy director for production affairs, said.
After the re-imposition of sanctions against the country, NIOC prepared a plan for production control, in parallel, programs for production restoration were also put on the agenda, and plans were made to revive production at one week, one month, and quarterly intervals, Alikhani explained.
“Although we have estimated the time required for a full recovery to be three months, based on the plans and arrangements made, we anticipate reviving most of the targeted capacity within one month,” he added.
According to the official, the NIOC approach has always been to be fully prepared so that whenever maximum oil production is needed the company would be able to restore production in the shortest possible time.
“For this purpose, all fields have been thoroughly studied, and naturally the younger and greener fields return to their potential production more quickly,” the official stated.
Alikhani, in response to a question about the estimated costs of restoring oil production capacity to pre-sanctions levels at this point said: “In any case, recovery of wells and restoring production will come at a cost.”
He further noted that NIOC plans are not limited to restoring previous production capacity, and in the second step, plans will be made to increase production.
“The average daily production of Iranian oil before the re-imposition of sanctions was 3.38 million barrels per day, and the National Iranian Oil Company has planned to return to the pre-sanctions production in the first step if the sanctions are lifted, and in the next step to increase production capacity to more than four million barrels per day,” Alikhani explained.
EF/MA