SHANA - Operator of South Pars Phase 14 development says the offshore section of the project will be complete by the end of the current Iranian calendar year which began on March 21.

Hamid Reza Masoudi said the first offshore platform of the project will be launched by late May this year.

He further said that the project has so far made 80% progress and construction of offshore platforms for the phase are 91.5% complete.

Moreover, building of subsea pipelines and drilling of wells for the phase have made 90% and 80% progress, respectively.

Masoudi went on to say that production of 28.2 mcm/d of gas from Phase 14 will also be possible by late September 2018.

"Drilling operations for 7 wells of the phase have completed and pre-commissioning operations over the sea pipelines of platform 14A and also a pipeline to carry gas from the project's refinery to the refinery of phase 12 are under way."

Masoudi expressed optimism that given the ongoing operations and devised plans, withdrawal of 500 million cubic feet of sour gas (equivalent to 14.1 million cubic meters) from the reservoir of this platform will be possible to be sent to the refinery to phase 12.

The developer of the South Pars Phase 14 Development Plan continued that the first phase of the project is being developed for a daily production of one billion cubic feet of sour gas (equivalent to 28.2 million cubic feet) from two offshore platforms.

1st train of SP.14 Refinery Online before 2020

Masoudi assessed the progress of the refinery's construction as positive, and said that the good speed of the refinery's completion is due to provision and installation of most of the goods and equipment needed for construction of the facility.

He also said that the first gas sweetening train of the refinery as well as its utilities unit will be operational by late 2019.

According to the Pars Oil & Gas Company, the development project of the South Pars Phase 14 is aimed at producing 56.6 mcm of sour gas and 75,000 barrels of gas condensate in the Pars Special Economic Zone.

An annual production of more than 1 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), one million tons of ethanol to be consumed by petrochemical units, and a daily production of 400 tons of sulfur have also been envisaged in developing the project.