Iran opens $1bn worth of projects in gas-rich Bushehr region

Oil Minister Javad Owji and his senior aides traveled to Bushehr’s port city of Asaluyeh on Monday to inaugurate several key projects that they said will boost Iran’s capacity to produce and process natural gas.

Asaluyeh, located on the western-most coast of the Persian Gulf, is home to some huge gas processing and petrochemical facilities that feed on the natural gas supplied from South Pars, the world’s largest gas field that is shared between Iran and Qatar.

The projects opened on Monday included several power plant units that will boost electricity supply to gas refineries as well as to Iran’s single natural gas liquefaction plant, known as Iran LNG.

Oil Ministry’s news service Shana said the government had spent more than $450 million to bring on line a first unit of the Be’sat combined cycle power plant with a capacity of 160 megawatts (MW).

It said Iran’s Oil Pension Fund had invested some $360 million to finish three more units of a 1,130 MW power plant that supplies electricity to the Iran LNG project.

Other projects included a $12-million pipeline for transferring condensates from Asaluyah refineries to a storage facility in the region and a $74-million project for thiol treatment from condensates produced in several South Pars refineries.

Oil Minister Owji said the projects opened in Bushehr on Monday will create some 5,000 permanent jobs for the people of the region.

He said the government had already started works on some $2 billion worth of new development projects related to the South Pars gas field and its subsidiaries.