Azar is one of Iran’s oil fields developed by an Iranian consortium with €1.4 billion in investment. One of the most complex oil fields in Iran, Azar is located in Anaran exploration block in Ilam province, western Iran.

Another challenge facing the Azar Field’s development operation, which has not been reported in any other oil field, is the occurrence of numerous cracks and fissures in the field, which appear after seasonal rains.

Based on the investigations, these cracks are the result of the weak structural levels of the earth’s layers, and erosion alone is not its cause, and since these cracks can be dangerous for the structures, buildings and facilities, in the areas adjacent to the waterways (given the potential for formation of the waterways and the possibility of expansion of these cracks into wide underground tunnels and the collapse of these tunnels and finally creation of chimneys and sinkholes), building facilities has been refrained from and by conducting detailed studies, the danger zone of the area has been identified and separated into more hazardous and less hazardous areas; also to understand the origin of these cracks and fissures, which increase the risk of the development operation, measuring the problem of erosion or global subsidence of the land was investigated as one of the reasons for the opening of cracks, and determining the rate of vertical and horizontal variations of the cracks themselves was considered.

Drilling 19 production wells and one wastewater disposal well with an average depth of 4,600 meters, performing acid fracturing and high-volume selective acid stimulation in all wells in Azar Field, installation of wellhead facilities and 80 km of 8-inch pipelines, construction of 320 kilometers of pipelines to transfer oil and gas from the field to the desired destinations; which is NGL 3200 for the crude oil and associated petroleum gas produced at Cheshmehkhosh production unit, construction of a central processing unit with a capacity of 71,500 barrels, and construction of an early production unit with the capacity of 30,000 barrels of crude oil are among the operations implemented for developing Azar Oilfield.