TEHRAN- The managing director of South Pars gas field’s sixth refinery told IRNA on Sunday that the overhaul of the refinery, which is planned to begin in October, will help stabilize gas output in Assaluyeh.

Ahmad Valipour said that repair of the sixth refinery has been envisaged to be completed in 2021 to upgrade the strategic indicators in the fields of production, environment and management.

"The planning has been made in a way that the sixth refinery will not have major repairs in 2021 and we will see an improvement in the accessibility and operational efficiency of the refinery in the near future”, he noted.

On May 31, the managing director had said that the feedstock supplied to the sixth refinery will be increased by 42 percent by the next Iranian calendar year (begins on March 21, 2021).

He said that by growing operational output and accessibility of the refinery by 2021, its feedstock will augment by 42 percent.

Valipour said that the refinery pursues its strategic plans in two axes: supplying the feedstock through a marine pipeline of the South Pars phase 16 of development which will materialize 42 percent increase in the feedstock and output, and implementation of plans to lower gas flares that would be beneficial for both environment and refinery output.

He said that the refinery made strategic plans last year to maximize, stabilize, and improve the production from the joint reserve in the South Pars field.

South Pars is the world’s largest gas field, covering an area of 3,700 square kilometers of Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.

The giant 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.

The field is divided into 24 standard phases that send the extracted gas to 14 refineries on the shore.

On May 19, the operator of phase 19 of South Pars said overhaul operations for the field’s 10th refinery, which processes the gas from phase 19, are going to be started on June 9.

The mentioned operations are expected to take 23 days to be completed, Soheil Rafiei said.

According to the official, the field’s offshore facilities overhaul program is aimed to maintain the production levels in the current year which has been called the year of “Surge in Production” by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Seyed Ali Khamenei.

He noted that changing the catalytic bed of the first gas train, repairing the interior cover, and inspecting the pre-flash drum are among the activities planned for this period.

“Inspection and cleaning of the re-boilers of the regeneration tower, inspection and minor repairs of the burners, internal repair of the sulfur tank, elimination of leaks from the header steam lines, and solving mechanical problems of various valves are also planned for this year's overhaul program,” he added.

Rafiei also mentioned cleaning and inspection of various types of drums as another important part of the overhaul program and said: repairing the internal cover and inspection of DSO separator, inspection of heat exchangers, preventive repairs of electrical items and precision instruments that cannot be done in normal condition are also some of the most important activities that will be carried out in the major repairs of the current year in collaboration with exploitation, overhaul, engineering, technical inspection and safety units.