Page 12 - DMEA Week 47 2021

DMEA REFINING DMEA

NIOC to launch final South

Pars refinery in January

MIDDLE EAST THE National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) said this subsurface.
week that it expects to bring the first gas sweeten- The only phases still to be completed are the
ing train of the South Pars development project’s Phase 14 refinery and the offshore Phase 11, for
final refining phase into operation in January which Total (now TotalEnergies) previously held
2022. The company’s deputy director for produc- a contract with NIOC.
tion affairs, Farrokh Alikhani, said: “Due to ris- Iran is home to around 34 trillion cubic
ing gas consumption in the country and in order metres of proven natural gas reserves, with
to prevent gas shortage in winter, the launch of South Pars accounting for around 14 tcm as well
Phase 14 refinery is very important.” as 18bn barrels of gas condensates.
Construction at the facility is now more than The Islamic Republic holds a 3,700-square
90% finished, with steam boilers and gas con- km portion of the 9,700-square km deposit that
densate storage facilities already operational. is shared with Qatar, where it is known as the
Other units including the instrument air unit North Dome field. Around 80% of the field’s ini-
and gas sweeteners are nearing completion. tial gas reserves are believed to remain in place.
It features six water boilers that each produce
around 27 tonnes per hour of steam which were Condensate capabilities
built by the local MAPNA Group. Meanwhile, POGC said this week that it had
The upstream phase 14 has a production loaded 1mn barrels of condensate through the
capacity of 56mn cubic metres per day of gas, single-point mooring (SPM) dedicated to the
75,000 barrels per day (bpd) of condensate, 400 offshore phase 19 of South Pars.
tonnes per day of sulphur and a combined 1mn The company’s deputy director of the phase,
tonne per year (tpy) of LPG and ethane. Seyed Hossein Azimi, was quoted as saying:
The LPG and ethane are used as feedstock “With the official operation of the fourth SPM of
by petrochemicals producers in the Pars Special South Pars, the loading capacity of gas conden-
Economic Zone (PSEZ). sate from refineries of site 2 increased.”
South Pars is split into 24 offshore develop- He added: “Using the 4th South Pars SPM,
ment phases and 14 onshore gas refineries which in addition to increasing the condensate loading
process the gas produced offshore. POGC, a sub- capacity in the export terminal of Site 2, opera- Asalouyeh and the
sidiary of the NIOC, holds ultimate responsibil- tional flexibility will increase in the site and will refining complexes
ity for the projects, with fellow NIOC subsidiary lead to stable production of gas and gas conden- associated with South
Petropars carrying out jobs on the surface and sate in the coming winter.”™ Pars from above

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 47 25•November•2021