The second refinery of South Pars Gas Complex (belonging to phases 2 and 3) increased its sweet gas and sulfur output in the first half of the current Iranian year (March-September) compared with the same period of last year, director of the refinery said.
“The refinery produced 10.439 billion cubic meters of sweet gas in the six-month period, which is 3% higher than last year’s first half,” Hossein Baghban was also quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry’s news agency Shana.
More than 59,000 tons of sulfur were also produced in the refinery, which was 4% higher than last year’s, he added.
According to the official, the refinery has also produced 10 million cubic meters of gas condensate.
“With the launch of the gas condensate demercaptanization unit, the quality of gas condensate will improve, which can play an effective role in the better sale of the product,” he said.
The construction of DMC unit is near completion and upon its inauguration next March, it will process 80,000 barrels of gas condensate a day.
The project in South Pars for the first time seeks to reduce the corrosive effects of harmful compounds on refining machinery and equipment.
Reducing environmental pollutants, upgrading and improving the quality of gas condensate, and increasing added value are the other goals of the key unit.
Not only do DMC units help refineries produce more value-added goods, but also help fight the worsening menace of air pollution by removing impurities like mercaptan, sulfur and other environmentally harmful materials from gas condensates.
DMC increases refining recovery rate and is seen as an integral part of processing gas condensates in modern refineries.
Mercaptans are the organic components of hydrocarbons with sulfur; they also have a bad smell and corrosive properties in pipeline transmission. Therefore, if mercaptans are in high concentration in natural gas, it must be removed to reduce the value to an acceptable limit.
To separate the mercaptans from natural gas in the sweetening plant, normally the Merox process is used.
In addition to its main task of producing sweet gas and injecting it to the national grid, the second refinery is directly and indirectly supplying feed to three petrochemical companies in the region.
South Pars Gas Complex comprises 14 gas refineries in southern Iran, which are currently processing the gas extracted from the country’s giant South Pars Gas Field that Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf.
The gas field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which, called South Pars, are in Iran’s territorial waters. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, called North Dome, are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters.
The field, currently divided into 24 standard phases in the Iranian side, is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about 8% of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.
