The gas supply projects to 21 cities and 2,809 villages, including 251,689 urban households and 181,576 rural households, as well as 4,664 industrial units in 6 provinces of West Azarbaijan, South Khorasan, Kerman, Lorestan, Khuzestan and Fars came online in a remotely participated-in ceremony with an investment of Rls. 63,310 billion by order of Dr. Hassan Rouhani, and in the presence of officials from the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) and provincial officials, SHANA reported.
Accordingly, four units of gas pressure boosting facilities in Khuzestan and Fars provinces, including Safashahr-8 pressure boosting unit, Bidboland-6 pressure boosting unit, Hosseinieh-6 pressure boosting unit and Farashband-10 pressure boosting unit were exploited.
Addressing a remotely participated-in ceremony on Thursday to launch several national projects in the presence of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Zangeneh said his ministry had been able to increase the number of villages covered by the gas supply network by a factor of 2.5 from 14,000 in 2013 to 35,000 villages in 2021.
"Without implementation of gas consumption optimization plans, especially in thermal power plant, we will not be able to maintain the balance between gas production and consumption in the future because we have no other South Pars gas field to tap," he said.
He said that with the measures taken, the coverage of gas supply in the whole country has now reached 95.1%, which is a unique figure in the world, adding that so far gas has been supplied to more than 20,000 villages with more than 1,770,000 households and 194 cities with about 650,000 households.
"Currently, 98.4% of the urban population and 84.6% of the rural population and in total, more than 95% of the total population of the country enjoys the benefits of natural gas, while in 2013, 95% of the urban population and 54% of the rural population, and a total of 85% of the population were covered by the gas supply network.”
The Minister of Petroleum continued: "Since March 2014, more than 58 billion liters of liquid products worth more than 26 billion dollars have been made available as the export of petroleum products in 2020 had more than quadrupled compared to 2013."
The sweetening (desulfurization) project of light cut of Bu Ali Sina Petrochemical Complex was another project that came online on Thursday, July 24 with the aim of desulfurization of light cut to bring the final sulfur content of the item to less than 1 PPM.
The light cut sweetening unit of Bu Ali Sina Petrochemical Complex, which has been implemented with an investment of Rls. 5,000 billion, will annually convert 350,000 tons of light cut produced by this complex into 285,000 tons of refined and 59,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
With the implementation of this plan, in addition to making it possible to operate at 110% of the plant’s nominal capacity and guaranteeing continuation of production in Bu Ali Sina Petrochemical Plant, quality and low-sulfur feedstock of Amirkabir and Bandar Emam petrochemical plants will also be provided.
In addition, light hydrocarbons should be stored in spherical tanks for a short time, but by sweetening light hydrocarbons in Bu Ali Sina Petrochemical Plant, this type of material can be stored in ordinary tanks for a long time.
Bu Ali Sina Petrochemical Plant is one of the subsidiaries of the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC), which is located on a 36-hectare land in the northwest of the Persian Gulf in Khuzestan Province and in the Bandar Emam Khomeini Special Economic Zone.
MAH/SHANA