According to Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), the unit is aimed at preventing the burning of acid gasses in the refinery’s flare stacks.
Payam Motamed, the operator of Phase 13, said the first train of SRU 108 of the refinery is now online with a capacity to recover 6 tons per hour of acid gas.
He said the unit is one of the key environmental units in refineries and has come on stream together with a gas sweetening unit at the plant.
The recovered sulfur produced by the unit is of great importance to reduce risks to the environment, he added.
Once fully operational, the plant will produce a maximum of 400 tons per day of sulfur.
Phase 13 is being developed for the production of 56 mcm/d of rich gas, 75,000 b/d of gas condensates, 400 tons/day of sulfur and 1.05 million tons per year of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and a million tons per year of ethane.
According to a World Bank report, the gas flares at oil and gas production sites around the world burn approximately 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, releasing more than 300 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Around 17 billion cubic meters of gas are burned off in Iran annually, which means billions of dollars loss for the country, according to published reports.
The government is obliged to curb the flaring of natural gas to 10% or lower by 2021 as part of a slew of ratifications by the legislature related to the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (2016-21).
MNA/SHANA