According to the CEO of the refinery Abdolsamad Najafi, “Refining and production of natural gas as the main product of this company has increased by seven percent compared to the same period last year,” Iranian Oil Ministry’s website Shana reported.

Najafi added there had been production enhancements in all other items produced by the plant.

Referring to the overhaul operations in the refinery, he said, “Fortunately, all activities are going as planned and the refinery is ready for maximum production in the winter.”

Najafi emphasized on compliance with the health, safety and environment (HSE) measures and health protocols in the overhaul of the company, noting, “The efforts of the employees of this company are sustainable production in the second half of the year to deliver gas to people’s homes without any disruption.”

He further said that production of gas condensate as a very valuable product in Fajr Jam Gas Refining has also increased by 30% in the said period.

Fajr Jam Gas Refinery (in Bushehr Province) is one of the oldest and biggest gas refineries in the country, which became operational in 1988 after Nar-Kangan gas fields were launched.

Commenting on the increase in injection into two Iranian storage facilities, Mehdi Jamshidi-Dana, said, “The amount of gas injection into Sarajeh facility in Qom (central Iran) was 748 million cubic meters last year (which ended on March 19). This year, it has increased by eight percent to exceed 810 million cubic meters,” Shana reported.

He added, the amount of gas stored in Shurijeh facility of Sarakhs (northeastern Iran) stood at 938 million cubic meters last year, saying the figure has increased by 48 percent this year to reach over 1.38 billion cubic meters.

The IGTC CEO noted that the rise in the amount of annual storage will greatly contribute to the stability of the country’s gas supply in the winter.

Iran has two major natural gas storage facilities in Sarajeh and Shurijeh. According to the annual routine of the National Iranian Gas Company, gas refineries from all over the country send their processed gas to these two facilities to be used in the cold months.

According to the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC), the Persian Gulf Bidboland gas refining project, which has recently been named the country’s top project by the Ninth National Project Management Award of Iran, is located about 15 km from Behbahan in Khuzestan province southwestern Iran.

According to the selection of the screeners of this international competition, the megaprojects were divided into two categories of infrastructure and energy, Shana reported on Saturday.

The winners of the IPMA World Awards will be announced in an official ceremony on October 31.

The Bidboland Persian Gulf mega project, the largest gas project in West Asia with an investment of $3.4 billion, is currently in operation and will be officially inaugurated in the very near future.

According to the refinery’s Managing Director Ali-Mohammad Pour-Reza, It has increased its processing capacity by threefold since 2013 and processes three bcm of gas from the supergiant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf.

Seyyed Hossein Azimi referred to the plans for exporting gas condensate through South Pars Site 2 using two single point mooring (SPM) systems, Shana reported quoting a statement by the Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC).

According to Azimi, currently, SPM 1 has been commissioned and construction of the pipeline and installation of the second SPM is underway.

He added that the capacity of loading gas condensate with the SPM 2 system is 7,000 cubic meters per hour, and the system will be installed in the south of the Asia Aram jetty, in Kangan, Asasluyeh, Persian Gulf region.

Azimi stated that in this project, a new method (shore pulling) will be used to pull the sea pipeline from the shore.

According to Hossein Baghban, the increase in the supply of feedstock to the refinery in the mentioned four-month period has come from the rise in the production capacity of the field’s phases 6, 7, and 8, which send their gas to the mentioned refinery for processing, ISNA reported.

Reducing the downtime of processing units and improving processing conditions are also on the agenda to realize the goals of further increasing the refinery’s output in the current Iranian year (ending March 2021).

He said that overhaul operations and the realization of all overhaul programs based on schedule are among the important activities planned for the current year to sustain production in phases 2 and 3.

South Pars Gas Complex is comprised of 14 gas refineries in southern Iran that are currently processing the gas extracted from the country’s giant South Pars gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf.

The mentioned gas field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which, called South Pars, are in Iran’s territorial waters. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, called North Dome, are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters.

Currently divided into 24 standard phases in the Iranian side, the field is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.

All the offshore operations of the development project of the field, except for phase 11, were completed in the past Iranian year (ending March 19).

Currently, Turkey imports gas from Azerbaijan, Russia, and Iran through the pipeline, and Russia owned 55 percent of the Turkish market while the remaining 45 percent is shared by Iran and Azerbaijan, said Head of Energy Commission of Tehran Chamber of Commerce Hamid-Reza Salehi, ILNA reported on July 15.

Salehi exclusively told ILNA, “The resumption of gas imports from Iran after a 3-month hiatus should be considered auspicious.”

Iran’s natural gas exports to Turkey halted due to an explosion that hit the pipeline on Turkish soil on March 31.

Salehi referred to some problems facing Russia’s “Blue Stream pipeline” that transfer gas to Turkey stressing that under the existing circumstances, Iran “must develop its liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in order to influence the Turkish market.”

Presently Ankara imports LPG by ship from the United States, Qatar, and Algeria. However, Iran can be a better actor “by selling its gas to Ankara on better terms,” said the official.

Salehi urged the need to use ‘economic diplomacy’ to be a winner in the economic competitions.

Relations between Russia and Turkey, one of Moscow’s biggest consumers of natural gas, have been patchy for the past years and are beset by the number of issues, including conflicts in Syria and Libya as well as the status of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia.

On July 10, a Turkish court annulled a 1934 cabinet decree that had turned Hagia Sophia into a museum, paving the way for its use again as a mosque after 85 years, the Turkish official News Agency, Anadolu, reported.

After centuries of service as a church under the Byzantine Empire, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II following his conquest of Istanbul in 1453.

In 1935, Hagia Sophia was converted into a museum.

Reconversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque received different reactions in the international community. It was welcomed by Muslim countries but hurt some others.

Russia’s Blue Stream pipeline, launched in the early 2000s, moved 11.1 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to Turkey last year out of a total of 15.5 bcm exported.