Reuters: Oil production at Iran's offshore Abuzar field has declined by 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) due a gas leak that started two weeks ago, a senior official was quoted as saying on Saturday.
TEHRAN, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Oil production at Iran's offshore Abuzar field has declined by 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) due a gas leak that started two weeks ago, a senior official was quoted as saying on Saturday.
Ghodratollah Larijani, director of planning at Iran Offshore Oil Company, said the situation would soon be brought under full control.
"The production of oil (at Abuzar) … has dropped by 40,000 barrels per day to 100-110,000 bpd due to an accident that led to the spewing of gas … (which) will be controlled within the next few days," the ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.
Iranian officials already earlier this month reported about the gas leakage but gave conflicting accounts as to whether a fire had also erupted on one of the field's three platforms.
An Iranian newspaper, Etemad-e Melli, on Feb. 4 said the oil field's production had been reduced by some 50,000 bpd. It said a leak prompted a production halt at one of its three platforms.
Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil producer and its average crude production in January amounted to 3.65 million bpd, according to a Reuters survey earlier this month.
Larijani said the spurting of gas had initially reached a height of 15 metres on Feb. 1, but experts had managed to lower it to no more than 30 cm.
Another Iran Offshore Oil Company official, Gholam-Abbas Jokar, said 10 of the Abuzar oil field's 70 wells had been taken out of production because of the gas leakage. (Reporting by Hashem Kalantari; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Victoria Main)
