46 Fields: Iran's Caspian Sea Blowout

Despite its reputation as an oil development headache, Iran has recently reported the discovery of 46 oil fields within the Caspian Sea:

Iran's Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said that his country located 46 oil fields in the Caspian Sea, the satellite Press TV reported on Thursday.

"Eight of the fields (out of 46) are presently ready for exploitation," Nozari was quoted as saying.

On Thursday, Iran launched its domestically-built semi-submersible drilling rig in the Caspian Sea for the exploration of oil and gas reserves.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad participated in the inaugural ceremony of the semi-submersible rig called Iran-Alborz, the largest in the Middle East, according to another report by Press TV.

Reportedly, the semi-floating rig weighs 14,000 tons and will facilitate oil exploration in the southern part of the Caspian Sea. It can operate at water depths up to 1,030 meters and can drill down to 6,000 meters under the seabed.

After winning the international tender offered by the National Iranian Oil Company for the construction of the Iran-Alborz platform in 2002, the (Iranian) Sadra Group, with a 95 percent of share, kicked off the project in a joint venture with the Swedish company GVA, which held another 5 percent of share, Press TV said.

Iran also plans to build a new oil pipeline linking the northern port of Neka in the Caspian Sea to the southern port of Jask in the Sea of Oman, Press TV quoted Nozari as saying.

According to the report, Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Noureddin Shahnazizadeh had said earlier that initial studies for the 2-billion-U.S.-dollar pipeline had been concluded and that the ministry would move to sign a contract soon.

Earlier in the year, Iran reported whopper-sized mega-finds, and years prior, made headlines with the discovery of the Ferdows and Mound/Zageh Fields.

- Brewskie

U.S. Offered to Suspend Iran Oil, Gas Sanctions in 2008

Woh... surprising news from the era of Cheney's hanging despotism....

The administration of former US president George W. Bush offered to dropoil and gas sanctions against Iran in the summer of 2008 in return for asix-week suspension of uranium enrichment, an offer that Tehran rejected, American-Iranian council president Hooshang Amirahmadi said Tuesday.

Amirahmadi, speaking at the Middle East Petroleum and Gas conference inDubai, said he was involved in the exchanges between Washington and Tehran. "The bottom line is that the US offered to suspend sanctions on oil andgas in return for Iran freezing uranium enrichment for six weeks," he said.

The offer was rejected by Tehran and the response to the US request for a"wish list" from the Iranian leadership was: "Leave us alone." Amirahmadi said when asked what type of sanctions the US was offering tosuspend that it applied to executive orders dating back to the Clinton era,which imposed a trade ban against Iran, including trade in oil and gas, andprohibiting US investment in Iran's energy
sector.

"No war. No peace."

- Brewskie

Iran: Oil, Oil, Oil...

After experiencing a dry spell in oil and gas news the past several weeks, suddenly, I've hit the blowout jackpot. Here's Iran's new mega-finds:

Iran is reporting huge new discoveries of oil that contain "billions" of barrels of reserves, state radio quoted the managing director of the country's National Oil Co. as saying today.

Seyfollah Jashnsaz said Iran has discovered seven new oil fields in unspecified locations around the country.

"Billions of barrels of oil will be added to the country's existing oil reserves," he said in comments broadcast on state radio.

According to Jashnsaz, just one of these oil fields has 9 billion barrels of oil.

"Even if we make calculations based on the minimum 12% recovery rate," he said, "it means that 1 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from this field alone."

He added that further details of the find will be announced by the country's minister of oil in coming days.

Iran already has the world's third-largest oil reserves, behind first-place Saudi Arabia and Canada. It recently added that its reserves had grown to 138 billion barrels from 90 billion barrels, thanks to reserves discovered over the last three years.

Ghawar Guzzler comment: Let's not forget that if Iraq can hold its shit together, this will add huge pools of black goo to the world market; it will likely find new, impressive discoveries once it (hopefully) gets its feet on the ground.

Message for idiots: this blog has made it quite clear that the world is not running out of oil or natural gas, and fantastic developments in alternative/renewable energy are being witnessed. Please stop telling us the world is going to hell.

- Brewskie