Iran to inaugurate Middle East’s largest NGL plant this week

TEHRAN,Feb.13(MNA) - The largest natural gas liquids (NGL) plant in the Middle East will come on stream on Thursday in Iran’s Siri Island, located in the Persian Gulf. The Siri NGL project includes Siri to Qeshm pipeline, Siri to Kish pipeline, Siri NGL plant, and Kish gas pressure boost station that cost $500 million. The NGL project will save Iran around $5-7 million per day out of not burning gases associated with oil. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to inaugurate the plant. The NGL plant in the Siri Island will prevent from burning gases associated with oil. The plant will produce 1,400 barrels of gas condensates, 1,500 barrels of pentane, 4,000 barrels of butane, and 8,000 barrels of propane per day. In September 2012, National Iranian Gas Company’s managing director Javad Oji told the Mehr news agency that Iran will implement a plan for putting out flares at gas refineries by the end of the end of the fifth five-year development plan (March 2016), aiming to reduce energy consumption at gas refining facilities. He added that 25 million cubic meters of gas will be saved at gas refining units. Associated gases can bring benefits for the country, but they are flared up and burden huge losses to the nation, instead. Some 40 million cubic meters of associated gas in oilfields are burnt daily. Iran has allocated $2 billion to collect associated gas at Kharg and Bahregan oil regions, the deputy oil minister for engineering affairs said in November 2011. Hamdollah Mohammadnejad told the Shana news agency that the sum will be spent to collect 17 million cubic meters of associated gas. He added that different projects, worth around $500 million, have been developed for collecting up to 99 percent of associated gases. Some $15 billion cubic meters of associated gas is burnt at Iran’s oilfields, bringing the country around $3 billion of loss annually. Since 2001, Iran’s annual imports of gas have been more than exports by nearly 71 billion cubic meters on the average.Iran is the second major holder of gas deposits in the world.