Iran exported 4.16 million tons of gas condensates worth $2.16 billion during the first five months of the current fiscal through Aug. 21, indicating a 40% and 23% decline in terms of volume and value respectively compared with last year's corresponding period.
According to the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration's latest report, gas condensate had a 9% and 11.23% share in the country’s total exports in terms of tonnage and value respectively. Last year's exports in the similar period amounted to 7.13 million tons worth $2.8 billion. A big part of the decline comes, as South Korea halted crude imports from Iran in August. The Asian nation did not import any crude from Iran last month, compared with 194,000 barrels a day in July. However, this could accompany the National Iranian Oil Company's plan to stop export deals for gas condensates with foreign customers to increase its use in more profitable petrochemical industries.
The Persian Gulf Star Refinery in the city of Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province, and Borzouyeh Petrochemical Company, the world’s largest aromatics production complex with a capacity of 4.5 million tons per year, are the biggest local consumers of gas condensates.
Each of the plants receives about 100,000 barrels per day of the fuel. With the completion of the refinery, this amount of feedstock, which are extracted from the South Pars Gas Fields in Bushehr Province, will reach 360,000 bpd.
PGSR is designed to produce 12 million liters per day of Euro-4 grade gasoline, 4.5 ml/d of Euro-4 diesel, 1 ml/d of kerosene and 300,000 liters per day of liquefied petroleum gas in the first development phase. Based on the Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2017-22), the country’s total output of gas condensates must be used in local industries to reduce the sale of raw materials. Iran's condensate output is slated to reach 1 million barrels a day following the launch of all phases of South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf. The field holds an estimated 51 trillion cubic meters of gas and 50 billion barrels of gas condensate.
