The gas extraction will be possible once projects to lay pipelines and transfer gas from the phase's platform to onshore refinery of phases 20 and 21 of the joint field are commissioned.

Operation of phases 20 and 21 of South Pars has been among priorities of Ministry of Petroleum this year. Once the project for development of the phases is complete, Iran can extract 56 million cubic meters (equal to two billion cubic feet) of gas from South Pars gas field.

The phases 20 and 21 of South Pars gas field have two platforms, each with the capacity to extract 28 million cubic meters/day (one billion cubic feet/day) of gas and Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company (IOECC) has embarked on the offshore part of the phase and construction of platforms.

The platform for phase 21 of South Pars was put into operation on November 17 and based on the IOECC report, operations to commission pipelines of the phase 21 have been completed. In the second half (December 5-20) of the Iranian month of Azar (November 21-December 20) 28 million cubic meters/day gas of the phase will be transferred to the onshore refinery of phase 20 and 21 of South Pars.

Managing Director of south Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) Mohammad Meshkinfam had already announced that Iran will extract 460 million cubic meters/day gas from South Pars gas field and once phase 21 of South Pars is operational by end of the fall season (December 20), gas extraction from the field will reach 500 million cubic meters a day.

The 2,700 ton platform of phase 21 of South Pars has been built in Khorramshahr Yard. The platform's pre-commissioning operations have thus far shown 92 percent progress. Thus far, project for operation of the platform is 77 percent complete and possible problems for gas transfer from refinery to phases 20 and 21 are getting removed.

Based on the schedule, the platform was to be put into operation in 120 days but the IOECC experts put it into operation within 87 days and less then the time envisaged for the purpose.

Operations to lay down seabed pipelines of the phase are underway, showing adequate pace of progress. Also, the hydrotest operations in 102 kms of the maritime pipelines were successfully over on November 24.

Once operations to link the onshore and offshore pipelines of the phase 21 of South Pars gas field and also link the pipeline with platform are complete, operations to inject nitrogen, which is another part of the operations to commission pipeline for transfer of South Pars gas will be completed.

With injection of the sweet gas to the refinery pipeline, sour gas of the platform will be transferred to refinery by December 20.

Based on the report, following completion of operations on the six kilometer onshore pipelines of the phase 21, operations will begin to commission the project with the phase 20 pipelines.

The goal behind development of phases 20 and 21 of South Pars gas field has been daily extraction of 56 million cubic meters of gas, daily production of 75,000 barrels of gas condensates, 400 tons of sulfur, annual production of 1,000,050 tons of liquid gas and one million tons of ethane gas to serve as feedstock for petrochemical industries.