According to Mohammad Meshkinfam, the last sweetening train of the onshore refinery will come online by October 22. The facility is fed by the sour gas recovered from phase 6 to 8 of the supergiant offshore gas field.

The official further said that a total of 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas was expected to be added to the field’s daily gas production capacity by the end of the current Iranian calendar year to March 20, 2019.

He further said that according to POGC plans, by completing half of the production chain of each of South Pars' development projects, including drilling wells, construction and operation of two main platforms, and construction of seabed pipelines to deliver gas to onshore refineries, gas production at each of the phases 13, 14 and 22-24 would reach one billion cubic feet per day.

Referring to the readiness of the refineries of phases 13 and 22-24 to get sour gas from the sea, the official added that the construction of pipelines to deliver sour gas from the offshore section of the field to the two onshore refineries was under way.

Mr. Meshkinfam said by the end of the current Iranian calendar year, 6 platforms belonging to South Pars phases would come on-stream, adding 3 billion cubic feet to the field’s gas production capacity.

Currently, production capacity of gas at South Pars stands at 570 million cubic meters per day, he added.

“During the first half of the current [calendar] year, production stood at an average of 502 mcm/d from the joint South Pars gas field,” the official added.