TEHRAN – Iran’s gas condensate production is expected to reach 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2022), the Iranian Oil Ministry announced.

Iran is currently producing over 550,000 barrels of gas condensate on a daily basis, part of which is directly exported to foreign destinations, and a part is used as the feedstock for domestic refineries.

Gas condensate, also called condensate, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natural gas will condense to a liquid state if the temperature is reduced to below the hydrocarbon dew point temperature at a set pressure.

Most of Iran’s gas condensate is produced from the country’s giant South Pars gas field which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf waters.

Iran used to export much of its condensate to Asia, with South Korea and Japan being major customers, but U.S. sanctions in 2018 led to a sharp decline in the exports.

Therefore, back in May 2020, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that his ministry planned to halt direct gas condensate exports to create products with more added value.

Zanganeh said the plan is to process the condensate in the country’s refineries in order to produce products like naphtha and gasoline and to supply feedstock to local refineries.

"All the gas condensate will be refined in the Persian Gulf Star and Siraf refineries ... to gasoline and feedstock for petrochemical units," Zanganeh said.

Persian Gulf Star Refinery currently receives 420,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gas condensate.

Zanganeh said South Pars and other nearby fields can produce up to one million bpd of gas condensate.

In early February 2020, the minister had said that about 130,000 bpd of the country's gas condensate were used as feedstock for the country’s petrochemical plants and 80,000 bpd go to domestic refineries, apart from Persian Gulf Star.

EF/MA