Iran has inaugurated the phase 3 development of the $3.4bn Persian Gulf Star Refinery near Bandar Abbas in the province of Hormozgan.
Image: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the inauguration of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery phase 3 development. Photo: courtesy of Official website of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Located in the southern part of Iran, the Persian Gulf Star Refinery is a gas condensate refinery which produces gasoline, diesel, LPG, hydrogen, sulphur and jet fuel.
The phase 3 development, which was officially opened by the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, is expected to boost productivity of the refinery, which is also known as Setareh Khalije Fars Gas Condensates Refinery and as Bandar Abbas Oil Refinery.
The Iranian refinery through the commissioning of the phase 3 development, will see its production capacity go up by a further 12 million liters a day of gasoline, reported Tasnim News Agency. This could later on be potentially ramped up to 15 million liters a day.
The Persian Gulf Star Refinery broke ground in 2006, 25km off the city of Bandar Abbas. In April 2017, the refinery’s phase 1 was inaugurated with the first shipment of gasoline delivered for distribution in June 2017.
The second phase of the refinery was placed into operations in June 2018.
Developed in three phases, the Persian Gulf Star Refinery is expected to make Iran self-sufficient in production of gasoline. It has also helped the country in exporting gasoline and other high-value products to other countries.
Each of the three phases of the Iranian refinery were designed to add 12 million liters a day of Euro-IV grade gasoline, 4.5Ml/d of Euro-IV diesel, 1Ml/d of kerosene and 300,000l of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) a day.
The refinery is fed by the condensate produced at the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf. The offshore gas field is located in the territorial waters between Iran and Qatar.
As per its development plans, the Persian Gulf Star Refinery will have three Axens continuous catalytic reformer (CCR) units, each of 45,000bpd capacity, along with three UOP isomerisation units, with a capacity of 30,000bpd each.
The Persian Gulf Star Refinery is owned by Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Investment Company, which holds a stake of 49%, Oil Industry Pension Fund, which owns a stake of 33.1% and National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), which holds a stake of 17.9%.