"South Pars Gas Complex produces 650,000 barrels of gas condensates per day, a major part (500,000 barrels) of which is delivered to the Persian Gulf Star Refinery in Hormozgan Province to be converted into gasoline," Mohammad Meshkinfam was quoted as saying by IRNA.
An estimated 100 million liters of gasoline is produced in Iran on daily basis. Forty million liters is from condensates produced from the SP Gas field, he noted, and said that the rest is produced by refineries, namely in Tehran, Bandar Abbas, Arak and Isfahan.
“Gas condensate is also sold to petrochemical plants in Asalouyeh and Mahshahr in the south as feedstock to produce value-added products and is offered on the international ring of the Iran Energy Exchange.”
Gas condensate is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids present as gaseous components in raw natural gas produced from gas fields.
As Iran increases gas output (850 million cubic meters per day, and expects to boost it to 1 billion cubic meters (by March), gas condensate production is getting a boost to raise gasoline output, he added.
SPGC comprises 75% and 92% of total natural gas and gas condensate output, respectively, the official said.
South Pars is the world's largest gas field shared between Iran and Qatar. It is developed in 24 phases of which 23 are operating.
Last year the Oil Ministry monthly started offering 2 million barrels of light crude, between 1-2 million barrels of heavy crude plus two million barrels of natural gas condensates on IRENEX.
Buyers can take delivery either at Kharg Island terminal off the Persian Gulf or at petroleum storage tanks in Bandar Abbas for land delivery.
“SPGC is in charge of 12 refineries with 20,000 people on the payroll and produces 700 million cubic meters of natural gas per day.” This is a growth of 145% (or 400,000 million cubic meters) compared to 2010 when output was 250 mcm/d.
The complex produces 10,000 tons of ethane, 2,000 tons of sulphur and 2,000 tons of LPG every day.
Work in Progress
In related news, IRNA quoted Alireza Sadeqabadi, chief executive officer at the state-run National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, as saying that construction work is over on the first stage of the fourth phase of PGSR.
“Phase four has increased PGSR processing capacity by 120,000 bpd and NIORDC is refining half a million barrels of condensates per day.” The plant’s gasoline and diesel output has reached 40 and 10 million liters per day.
PGSR was developed in four phases and each phase is designed to produce 12 million liters per day of high-octane gasoline and diesel as part of government policy to wean away from costly imports.
NIORDC is producing close to 100 ml/d of gasoline, of which 90m complies with Euro-4 and Euro-5 emission standards. Current daily gasoline consumption is in the region of 75 ml/d.
Gasoline sales never surpassed 75 ml/d in the last five months in Iran due to Covid-19 restrictions. Earlier NIORDC had predicted that in 2020 consumption would surpass 120 ml/d.