The company, a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), expects to seek an initial tender for drilling more than 20 wells at the field in addition to well equipment and pipes.

The field is estimated to hold reserves of more than 5 trillion cubic feet, although the initial capacity is likely to be between 800 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) and 1 billion cf/d.

Two Australian companies were originally lined up to carry out the overall upstream development on the field but CIOFC is now expected to carry out the project on its own.