Iran may struggle to put its latest oil field discovery into production
because of a lack of technology and tougher commercial sanctions,
analysts said Tuesday.
Raja Kiwan, analyst at PFC Energy told Zawya Dow Jones "the
question is how expensive and difficult is it to produce and do the
Iranians have the resources to undertake a project of this scale
alone?"
"Iran has announced a few discoveries over the past decade but their oil production capacity has remained flat," he added.
Iran's oil minister Gholam Hussein Nozari said Monday on the
official Shana energy news agency that a new oil field holding 8.8
billion barrels of oil had been discovered. But the field's recoverable
oil is likely to be significantly smaller than the figure stated by
Shana, which according to an Iranian oil ministry spokesman referred
only to "oil in place."
Oil in place measures total hydrocarbon content of an oil field of which as little as 10% may be recoverable.
Analysts said Iran's lack of access to the latest oil
development technology will present major challenges for its engineers
to tap the new find. Iran, the second-largest oil producer in OPEC,
relies heavily on Chinese and Russian technology for developing its oil
fields.
"The Iranians don't have the technology to develop it, they
are currently having problems sustaining their current production
because of lack of technology and know-how," said Kamel Al Harami, a
Kuwait-based oil analyst.
Iran's oil industry is undergoing a shakeup from the highest
levels as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad awaits Parliament's ruling on
his nominated new cabinet which includes the replacement of oil
minister by Massoud Mir-Kazemi.
Tougher sanctions from the West targeting the export of oil products to Iran will be enforced on Sept. 15.