TEHRAN – The first train of the South Pars Phase 14 refinery went operational through transferring the refined gas to the national gas pipeline, the managing director of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) announced.

Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr said that with the efforts of domestic experts, after intensive construction, operation, and receiving offshore sour gas in the first train of gas refining of the South Pars phase 14 refinery, the sending of refined gas from this processing line to the national gas transmission line began.

Referring to the arrival of sour gas from the offshore platforms of South Pars phase 14 to the refinery facilities of this project on February 28, he said: "Thus, part of the processing capacity of phase 14 refinery with a daily capacity of 500 million cubic feet equivalent to 14.2 million cubic meters of gas became operational.

Back in November 2021, the managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), which is in charge of developing South Pars gas field, had said that the first train of the South Pars phase 14 refinery was going to go operational by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20).

As reported by Shana, in a visit to the project’s site, Mohammad Meshkinfam said: “Phase 14 refinery is the last refinery of the South Pars, the development of which was delayed due to lack of financial resources, but the executive operations of this project have been started and are currently underway.”

According to Meshkinfam, out of 13 South Pars refineries, 12 refineries have gone operational so far and phase 14 refinery is the last onshore processing facility belonging to the massive joint gas field that is being developed by POGC.

Phase 14 development is aimed at producing 56.6 million cubic meters per day of rich gas, 75,000 barrels/day of gas condensate and 400 tons/day of sulfur, and 1 million tons/year of liquefied petroleum gas and one million tons/year of ethane to be fed to petrochemical plants.

South Pars gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf water, is divided into 24 standard phases of development in the first stage. Most of the phases are fully operational at the moment.

The huge offshore field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, called North Dome, are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters.

The field is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.

MA/MA