Project on Strengthening Environmental Management in the Petroleum Industry in the Persian Gulf and its Coastal Area

The Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran) has abundant proven oil reserves and natural gas reserves. The reserves being developed currently are confined to the southwest inland and offshore Persian Gulf, and further development of such reserves are planned by the government in this decade.

Accompanying the long time development at the coastal and offshore fields of the Persian Gulf, the environment in the region has been degraded significantly due to emission and discharge of various wastes such as gases, waste water and solid wastes associated with the past development and production activities despite the efforts of environmental protection by the developers.

Accordingly, in response to the official request of the Government of Iran for technical cooperation, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has implemented the "Project for Strengthening Environmental Management in Petroleum Industry in Persian Gulf and its Coastal Area" (the Project) in close cooperation with Ministry of Petroleum (MOP) and the authorities concerned under the MOP. The project started on March 2012 and will continue till February 2014.

The goal of the Project is to strengthen the management capabilities for marine and coastal environment in the petroleum industry in Iran. For achieving the goal, the Project aims:

(1) To review and analyze the current marine and coastal environmental management and emergency response preparedness on potential oil spill event, and

(2) To formulate draft Master Plans for improvement of the marine and coastal environmental management system and oil spill emergency response system.

The Project aims to transfer the advanced technologies for the environmental management and effective response to the possible accidental oil spill to the Iranian side through implementation of the Project.

The target areas to be covered in the Project are the marine and coastal areas of the Persian Gulf affected by the offshore oil exploration/operation and the petroleum industrial areas designated as pilot areas as follows.

The study is composed of two phases as follows:

Phase 1: Review and analysis of the current marine and coastal environmental management and emergency response preparedness on potential oil spill event

Phase 2: Formulation of draft Master Plans for strengthening the marine and coastal environmental management and oil spill emergency response system for petroleum industry.