TEHRAN (Iran News) –  South Pars cumulative gas output exceeds 1,800 bcm. Over 1,800 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas has been produced from the giant South Pars field in southern Iran since the beginning of the field’s development up to March 20, according to Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) which is in charge of developing the huge gas field.

As announced by the POGC Office of Public Relations, the total amount of gas production from the South Pars field, which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, reached 1,867 billion cubic meters from the beginning of operation until the end of the previous Iranian calendar year (March 20).

Some 2.2 billion barrels of gas condensate have also been extracted from this joint field since the beginning of development.

The value of South Pars products, on the development of which nearly $80 billion has been invested, is estimated at $335 billion so far, according to the POGC.

The huge South Pars field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran’s territorial waters. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, called North Dome, are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters.

The field is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.

The development of the South Pars field started in 1998 and 29 different phases were defined for the project along with a separate oil block. The field, however, is currently divided into 24 standard offshore phases, the output of which is processed by 14 gas refineries on land.

Since the beginning, the field’s development project has gone through so many ups and downs and many foreign and domestic companies have contributed to the completion of the field’s various phases.

France’s Total. Italy’s Eni, Malaysia’s Petronas, Russia’s Gazprom, Norway’s Statoil, and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) are some of the foreign companies which have worked on the field for different phases and in different time spans.

Despite all the U.S pressures which led to the departure of almost all of the above-mentioned companies from the project, and despite all the technical and engineering problems faced in the process, Iran has managed to proudly finish the development of almost all the phases of the field and even the field’s oil layer is also producing nearly 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil.