TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- New phases in the South Pars natural gas complex in the Persian Gulf could triple the production capacity there for Iran, country officials said.
South Pars, shared by Iran and Qatar, forms the largest natural gas field in the world. Tehran claims reserves in its section of the gas field represent about 8 percent of the world's total natural gas reserves.
Ali Akbar Shabanpour, managing director of Iran's South Pars Gas Complex, said new measures planned for the gas field could increase his country's gas production by around 1 billion cubic feet per day, the semiofficial Fars News Agency reports.
Iran views gas from the South Pars complex as the answer to regional energy security woes. Gas there would head through a pipeline program through Pakistan, a program once dubbed the Peace Pipeline because it would've stretched to India. Iran said it could ship gas through Europe's planned Nabucco pipeline, through Western backers of that project have ruled out an Iranian role.
Gas officials in Tehran last week said Iran could triple gas production from South Pars. Officials, however, declined to outline investment strategies, infrastructure plans or time horizons for the new developments.
