Early production from South Pars gas field phases 17 and 18 will start this year after launching the first gas processing plant of the phases.

Mahmoud Taheri, a senior control expert at South Pars gas field phases 17 and 18 told Shana that the project had made progress by 80 percent in onshore sector, adding Iranian experts will complete construction of related gas processing plant before the end of current Iranian calendar year in March 2013.

Development plan of South Pars gas field phases 17 and 18 includes installation of four platforms, each with production capacity of 500 million cubic feet of gas per day; Taheri said adding two platforms will be built by Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company and the other two by Sadra Company.

According to the contractor of the phases 17 and 18 two platforms of the phases will be launched in coming winter while the other two platforms will be built and delivered to the contractor next year.

He further said that two 110 kilometers parallel gas pipelines would be launched in next two month to transfer sour gas from offshore sector to onshore sector of the phases.

The project has made progress generally by 67 percent, Taheri said, adding the gas processing plant of the phases includes four trains and by launching the first train, early production from the phases 17 and 18 will be started by production of 12.5 million cubic meters per day. Totally, 4.850 billion dollars will be spent in the project, according to Taheri.

Development plan of the South Pars gas field phases 17 and 18 aims at daily production of 50 million cubic meters of sweet gas, 80 thousand barrels of gas condensate as well as 400 tons of sulfur.

Production of one million tons of ethane and 1.05 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas per year are among the other aims of the project.
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