More than 553 tons of mercaptan, a gas odorant, were produced at the first refinery of South Pars Gas Complex last year (March 2022-23) with the efforts of the specialists of the complex, the director of the refinery said.
“The production unit of gas odorant is the first of its kind in the Middle East and one of the few in the world, which has made Iran self-sufficient in producing the product and the country need not import the material now,” Hossein Hamzavi was also quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry’s news service Shana.
“Mercaptan is a strategic industrial material, which is no longer the monopoly of just a few countries, as it has been indigenized by Iranian experts and engineers,” he added.
Hamzavi noted that currently, daily production of the unit is about 1.8 tons, and because of rising domestic demand, several projects have been launched to increase output to about 2,000 tons per year soon, which will make it possible to export the material as well.
Mercaptan, also known as methanethiol, is added to natural gas for detecting leaks in the gas pressure reduction stations. It is an organic gas composed of carbon, hydrogen and sulfur. It bonds strongly with mercury compounds and releases a strong odor resembling that of garlic or rotting cabbage.
Since natural gas is colorless and odorless, the foul-smelling mercaptan is added to it as a safety measure to help identify gas leaks. Its compounds are detectable at concentrations as small as only 10 parts per billion, making them an effective odorant.
Natural gas distributors began adding mercaptan to natural gas after a deadly explosion in 1937 at a school in New London, Texas. Currently, most gas odorants are mixtures of mercaptan and sulfides.
Until 2018, the item was imported. However, after the US reimposed sanctions on Iran, the country faced difficulty in importing it. Iran would have faced enormous problems had the item’s production not been localized.
SGPC Output
South Pars Gas Complex accounts for 73% and 92% of total natural gas and gas condensate output respectively in Iran.
The share of fossil fuel in Iran's energy basket is 74%, of which 50% are produced by SPGC.
The complex also accounts for 96% of liquefied petroleum gas, 100% of ethane and 55% of sulfur produced in Iran.
Data pertaining to 2022 show a rise in output of a variety of byproducts, namely ethane (20%), LPG (25%) and sulfur (12%), compared to the year before. SPGC produces 16,000 tons of ethane per day, most of which are used as feedstock in Morvarid, Kavian and Jam petrochemical companies in Bushehr Province.
South Pars is the world's largest gas field shared by Iran and Qatar. More than 2,300 billion cubic meters of natural gas have been processed in the refineries of the South Pars Gas Field since it became operational in 1998. The main mission of the complex is to create maximum value from the gas resources of the region.
