IRNA reported that oil production from the S1 drilling rig had started earlier in the day, some six months after the giant structure was installed in a location around 140 kilometers off the Iranian island of Lavan in the Persian Gulf.

Production began after Iranian engineers and servicemen successfully hooked up the S1 platform and tested all its installations and connections to other rigs at Salman oilfield, said the IRNA report.

Taking crude from the shared rig with UAE, which has been fully designed and built inside Iran, comes at a time of increasing efforts by Iran to maintain and boost its oil production despite a fall in sales that has come as a result of American sanctions.

Shared oilfields have been a main focus of increased output schemes in Iran. Oil Ministry authorities said earlier this week that production from oilfields located to the west of the Karun River and shared with Iraq had increased several fold in six years to reach 400,000 bpd this year.

That comes as development of oilfields faced a brief halt in recent years mainly because foreign contractors stalled the projects before leaving them under increasing American pressure.

Iran has also developed its massive natural gas reserves in the Persian Gulf, where production from South Pars, the world’s largest gas reserves which is shared with Qatar, has nearly tripled in six years to reach around 700 million cubic meters a day.