Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 12
By Emil Ilgar – Trend:
Iran’s eight gas refineries in South Pars processed 465 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas during last 24 hours, Masoud Hassani, managing director of South Pars Gas Complex said Dec. 12, official website of the company reported.
This figure was reached by the refineries 1 to 7 and 9. The figure in the same day of the last year was 387 mcm/d.
Of course, the figure for December 11, 2015 was not the final capacity, because this year the cold season started earlier than last year leading to housing sector’s gas demand of about 490 mcm/d, about 150 mcm/d more than the same period of 2015.
According to a document, prepared by Oil Ministry and seen by Trend, the South Pars gas refining capacity was about 441 mcm/d until March 21, when Iran’s fiscal year started.
A part of processing growth in South Pars came from boosted gas production from the field. For instance, Iran started processing 12 mcm/d of gas, produced from phases 17 and 18, in the 7th refinery of South Pars in early 2015, but the output of these phases stands at 42 mcm/d currently.
Sweet gas output of refineries of South Pars is about 18 percent of the total amount of processed raw gas (including 15 percent of methane and 3 percent of ethane, propane, butane). Therefore, it seems about 380 mcm/d of sweet gas was injected to gas grid during Dec. 11.
Currently, Iran produces about 750 mcm/d of raw gas, of which more than 100 mcm/d is flared and re-injected into oil wells to maintain the crude oil production. Iran decreases gas re-injection to oil fields in autumn and winter.
It is not clear how much raw and sweet gas Iran is producing, but according to a document prepared by Oil Ministry, the country produced 606 mcm/d of raw gas (excluding about 30 mcm/d of flaring), of which 537.6 mcm/d was delivered to refineries during the first half of current fiscal year (spring and summer).
Iran also delivered 45.8 mcm/d of gas to petrochemical plants, of which two thirds was sweet gas.