First gas condensate shipment from South Pars gas field's Phases 15 and 16 will be exported in the coming days, the operator of the phases announced Friday.
Arrangements were made with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)'s foreign affairs department and the Iran Oil Terminals Company for the export of gas condensates from the two phases of South Pars gas field in the coming days, Reza Foroozesh was quoted by Shana news agency as saying.
Storage tanks and other required apparatuses to commence loading operations were handed over to the Iran Oil Terminals Company. Offshore and onshore devices include two drilling rigs (each comprising 11 wells), two 32-inch offshore pipelines with a length of 115 kilometers, and gas sweetening units.
Developments at Phases 15 and 16 are aimed at producing 56.6 million cubic meters of natural gas, 75,000 barrels of gas condensates, and 400 tons of sulfur per day. There are also plans for annual production of one million ton of liquefied petroleum gas (propane and butane) and ethane as feedstock for petrochemical complexes.
The two phases are the most recently-developed phases of the field, located in the Persian Gulf region. Phase 15 went into operation, and sour gas extraction commenced therein, in early January. First batch of gas from Phase 16 was injected into the national gas pipeline in December.
Iran is seeking to capitalize on sales of oil products such as petrochemicals and condensates to make up for the drop in oil sales. Almost 57 percent of Iran's total exports during the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (ends March 20) pertain to gas condensate and petrochemicals, according to official customs' data. Gas condensate accounted for 27.8 percent of total exports in the said period, up from last year's 21.6 percent.
Iran's oil and gas condensate production capacity will exceed 5.7 million bpd by 2018.
South Pars is the world's largest gas field, shared between Iran and Qatar, covering an area of 3,700 square kilometers of Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. It adjoins Qatar’s North Field, which measures 6,000 square kilometers. The field has a capacity of producing 820 mcm/d and 1 mcm/d of gas and gas condensates, respectively.
