SHANA - Iran's production of crude oil from the oil layer of the supergiant South Pars Gas Field (SPOL) has exceeded 2.5 million barrels.

The country is planning to send the layer's 5th oil consignment in the coming days, said Fardin Asadi, operator of SPOL's development project.

He said a 500,000-barrel crude oil consignment is being loaded for export in the current week.

He said production from the layer's 7 wells has been planned to maximize production life of the reserves while maximizing production.

Asadi further said that injection operations will begin by March 2018 in order to stabilize reservoir pressure of the layer.

The layer is estimated to roughly hold over 6 billion barrels of oil with over 10% recovery rate that can be enhanced to beyond 35% by adopting EOR and IOR techniques.

More exact estimation of the layer needs spudding more exploration wells, he said.