Reports of a new supergiant oil discovery with 53 billion barrels oil-in-place in the Khuzestan region of Iran is of major significance for the global petroleum industry. We are used to international oil companies announcing discoveries in different parts of the world with great fanfare, but this announcement, by the widely admired Iranian Oil Minister H.E. Zanganeh, refers to new oil volumes of much greater size.
The reports indicate that the Ilam carbonate reservoirs, part of the Bangestan Group, [not the shallower Asmari sandstone reservoir stated in earlier reports], at a depth of 3100m ss in the discovered Darquain, Jufyr, Sepehr, Mansouri, Susangerd and Ab-Teymour oil fields, are all joined up as one supergiant oil field, newly named Namavaran. The new oil-in-place volumes added to Iran resources is quoted as 22 Billion barrels noting that 31 Billion barrels is already reported by the National Iranian Oil Company for the discovered fields, which were previously thought of as separate oil accumulations. It is hard to verify the 22 Billion barrels addition without an accurate knowledge of Ilam/ Sarvak oil-in-place volumes in the existing fields.
The geologists in the National Iranian Oil Company are to be congratulated for their painstaking work building the regional knowledge which has led to this announcement. The spill points in the discovered fields were found to be higher than the established oil-water contact in each field. It is remarkable that only 3 exploration wells, drilled post-2016, together with 3D seismic data sets enabled the areal extent of Namavaran to be delineated.
Iranian Oil Minister H.E. Zanganeh is quoted as saying that “explorations are underway and there is a possibility of discovering more oil fields in region”. This may allude to the potential of the deeper Fahliyan reservoirs in Khuzestan extending much more widely than is currently reported.
The development of Namavaran oil in Khuzestan Iran is challenging given the hot desert environment and, in certain areas, the presence of unexploded ordinance remnants from the Iran-Iraq war. In addition, the Namavaran area is also subject to flooding but may be less vulnerable to flooding than the Yadavaran and Azadegan oil fields adjacent to the Iran/Iraq border.
But development from the Namavaran area, which now ranks as world’s largest concentration of undeveloped oil, is possible and at low cost, if politics permit ….
