“Construction of the refinery has registered 84% progress,” Mohammad Mehdi Tavassolipur was quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry news agency Shana.
The giant South Pars field in the Persian Gulf has 24 phases, all but Phase 11 are up and running. Since no refinery will be built for this section, the Phase 14 refinery is the last onshore processing facility in the huge field that Iran shares with Qatar.
Tavassolipur said the offshore section of the phase is complete and all the decks are operating. It has four platforms, each with a capacity to produce 14 million cubic meters of gas per day.
With the new refinery still under construction, sour gas from the phase is sent through a pipeline to refineries in phases 12 and 19.
"Considering the importance of extracting Iran's share from the joint field and achieving the goals of the project, including daily production of 56 million cubic meters from four platforms, it was decided to focus on the offshore sector,” Tavassolipur said.
With the help of domestic engineers, drilling operations for gas wells, laying offshore pipelines and installing four offshore platforms were completed in March. So far 22.5 billion cubic meters of gas has been extracted from the phase, sweetened and injected into the national network drawing on free capacity of refineries in phases 12 and 19.
Besides 56 million cubic meters of gas, Phase 14 produces 75,000 barrels of gaseous condensates and 400 tons of sulfur per day.
It also produces liquefied petroleum gas and ethane (one million tons of each a year) for domestic use and for feedstock to petrochemical companies in the Pars Special Energy Economic Zone in Bushehr Province.
The field stretches over 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran’s territorial waters. The remaining 6,000 kilometers belong to Qatar and are known as North Dome.
According to published reports, the field is estimated to hold 14 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas reserves along with 18 billion barrels of recoverable liquefied natural gas reserves in Iranian waters.
Production from the giant gas field has reached 700 million cubic meters per day and $80 billion has been invested in the field since 2001 when the first well was drilled.
South Pars constitutes 96% of liquefied petroleum gas, 100% of ethane and 55% of sulfur produced in Iran.