Director of the integrated planning at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) says the company is seriously following up on developing the West Karoun and South Pars joint fields and the contractors for the rest of the shared fields are also mostly determined.

Speaking to Shana on Sunday, Karim Zubeidi gave an overview of the company"s performance regarding the development of the country"s joint fields in recent years, especially West Karun and South Pars fields.

Mentioning NIOC"s activities in the South Pars gas field which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, Zubeidi said: Qatar started extracting gas from South Pars field sooner than Iran, however in recent years we have been able to increase our production so that it is equal or even greater than that of Qatar, considering the fact that nearly 60 percent of the field is expanded in the Qatari side.

He further underlined the development of the country"s western joint fields, saying: "The West Karoun region has also gone through continuous development in the recent years. This region"s in-situ deposit is estimated to be 100 billion barrels."

West Karoun oilfields, which Iran shares with Iraq at the western part of Iran"s southwestern region of Karoun, include five major fields namely North Azadegan, South Azadegan, North Yaran, South Yaran and Yadavaran.

Iran"s oil industry has been strongly focused on developing joint oil and gas fields, aiming to increase the share of such fields in the country"s oil and gas production.
Back in June 2019, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh put the development of Iran"s shared oil and gas fields as the main priority of the ministry and NIOC.

In the decree addressed to Masoud Karbasian, the NIOC head, completion and inauguration of the phases 13, 14, 22 and 24 of South Pars gas field as well as increasing the capacity of crude oil production in the joint fields of Karun region and construction of the Goureh-Jask oil pipeline and the Jask port"s oil terminal are mentioned as the main priorities for NIOC.