“The mega project, which cost $3.5 billion, has registered 99% progress,” Tasnim News Agency reported Mahmoud Amin-Nejad as saying.
Located in Behbahan County in the southwest, Bid Boland is the Middle East’s largest refinery with an annual production capacity of 10.4 million tons of methane, 1.5 million tons ethane, 1 million tons propane, 600,000 tons gas condensates and 500,000 tons butane.
With the inauguration of the refinery, production of sweet gas and other gases will increase, which will be used to feed petrochemical plants in Mahshahr and supply urban areas in the region. Exports are also anticipated, according to Financial Tribune.
The refinery will supply feedstock through a 1,200-kilometer pipeline—known as the West Ethylene Pipeline—that runs from Asalouyeh in the south to West Azarbaijan Province in the northwest.
Equipped with facilities to separate ethane from methane, the refinery will help diversify petrochemical products, which is presently allocated to urea and ammoniac production. Separation of the two chemicals will help increase productivity and cut waste.
Bid Boland gas treating facility is fed by the gas from the supergiant South Pars and Aghajari and Aghaz fields.
Refineries are among the major consumers of water for their cooling towers. During the treatment and refining of sour gas, large quantity of wastewater is produced.
“With the construction of evaporation ponds in Bid Boland, no industrial water goes out of the refinery,” Amin-Nejad said.
Moreover, the refinery is equipped with a modern vapor recovery unit that can collect environmentally-hazardous vapors to be reprocessed or destroyed.
Officials say Bid Boland will play a significant role in expanding the downstream petrochemical sector.
Iran is striving to diversify its economy and make better use of its hydrocarbon reserves by producing petrochemicals with higher value-added.
Regarding the collection of flare gas in the region, Amin-Nejad said the National Iranian Oil Company and Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company will soon begin gathering of associated gases in Khuzestan.
NIOC has defined 30 projects to collect associated gas in the East Karoon region.
Most of the projects are small-scale and will be completed within two years. They seek to prevent the burning of 22 million cubic meters of associated gases in Khuzestan and be used as feedstock for petrochemical facilities. The gas will be supplied to Bid Boland and Maroon petrochemical projects.
Flare stacks are the main contributors to the worsening air pollution in the southwestern oil-rich province of Khuzestan.