South Pars Refinery to Process Gas Condensates

Iran is making efforts to increase its gas condensates refining capacity by installing a demercaptanization (DMC) unit, an important component for processing condensates at a South Pars refinery.

The National Iranian Oil Company has commissioned the Research Institute of Petroleum Industry and Khatam-al-Anbia Construction Headquarters to set up the DMC unit at the South Pars 2nd Refinery, Shana reported on Tuesday.

The refinery receives natural gas from phases 2 and 3 of South Pars Gas Field for processing and pumping it into the national gas trunkline. The second refinery came on stream 20 years ago as the first of 14 planned processing facilities for Iran's mega South Pars project.

Sirous Peykar, director of the project, said on Tuesday the DMC plan aims to sweeten South Pars refineries’ gas condensates, adding that the project is being carried out in South Pars for the first time, but if it were to give rise to expected results, similar plans may be implemented in phases 4, 5, 9 and 10. The official noted that the DMC unit will reduce corrosive effects of harmful compounds on refining facilities, enhance gas condensates quality and increase the added value of the product.

“As per the schedule, the unit will become operational in 10 months,” Peykar said, stressing that the contractors have so far procured 50% of the needed equipment.

Phases 2 and 3 have produced a total of over 8.1 billion cubic meters of gas since March 21, the beginning of this fiscal year, or approximately 56 million cubic meters daily.

South Pars is the world's largest gas reservoir in the Persian Gulf shared between Iran and Qatar. It holds an estimated 51 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in place and some 50 billion barrels of gas condensates.

Iran launched the first phase of its biggest condensate refining plant, the Persian Gulf Star Refinery, in April. Located in Hormozgan Province, the plant is being developed in three phases, with the first development phase to produce 12 million liters per day of Euro-4 gasoline, 4.5 ml/d of Euro-4 diesel, 1 ml/d of kerosene and 300,000 liters per day of liquefied petroleum gas.