2 South Pars Phases to Undergo Overhaul

EghtesadOnline: Two phases of South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf will be overhauled later this month.

News ID: ۷۷۸۳۱۷

13 August 2017

"The maintenance and overhaul of South Pars phases 2 and 3 will begin on August 20 and is scheduled to be completed in 18 days," said Mohammad Saeedian, director of South Pars 2nd Refinery, ILNA reported.

The refinery receives natural gas from phases 2 and 3 for processing and pumping into the national gas trunkline. It came on stream 20 years ago as the first of 14 planned processing facilities for Iran's mega South Pars project.

According to Saeedian, phases 2 and 3 have produced a total of over 8.1 billion cubic meters of gas since March 21, the beginning of this fiscal year, or approximately 56 million cubic meters daily. South Pars is the world's largest gas reservoir in the Persian Gulf shared between Iran and Qatar. It holds an estimated 51 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in place and some 50 billion barrels of gas condensates. Implementing a metering system for monitoring gas flow at the refinery is part of the refinery overhaul, Financial Tribune reported.

"The installation [of the metering system] is an intricate task that requires total shutdown of the refinery," Saeedian said. The official announced that plans are in place to enhance processes at SP 2nd Refinery by installing a demercaptanization unit, or DMC. The process increases refining recovery rate and is seen as an integral part of processing gas condensates in modern refineries.

South Pars is being developed in 24 phases. The field is called North Dome in Qatar's territory. According to one estimate, Iran's recoverable reserves stand at 10 trillion cubic meters and those of Qatar are estimated at over 25 trillion cubic meters. Iran has boosted gas production to around 880 million cubic meters per day, more than two-thirds of which come from South Pars.

The country aims to raise output to over 1 billion cubic meters by March 2018. More than 146 bcm of natural gas were produced from South Pars in the previous fiscal year, or 400 million cubic meters daily.