Farhad Izadjou said the first gas sweetening train of the refinery will come online by late March 2018 and the other trains will become operational by August.

He said the offshore platforms of the phases will be installed at their designated spots in the Persian Gulf by late-March, adding the refinery will be fed by the gas recovered from phases 6 to 8 of the field that Iran shares with Qatar.

The phases are being developed for production of 56.6 million cubic meters/day of rich gas, 75,000 barrels/day of gas condensate, and 400 tons/day of sulfur.

Moreover, an annual production of 105 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and a million tons of ethane has been envisaged in developing the phases for feeding petrochemical plants.