“Weighing 2,500 tons, the structure was loaded on a barge in Iran Marine Industrial Company (SADRA) yard in Bushehr Province,” the Oil Ministry news service Shana quoted Ali Asghar Sadeqi as saying.

The deck is expected to be installed in 20 days. Having completed the operations such as hookup, commissioning, and maritime pipelines, it will produce  ۱۴ million cubic meters of natural gas per day from the joint offshore field.

“Iranian companies executed all the stages of engineering, construction and execution of the platform with domestic suppliers supplying most of the equipment,” Financial Tribune quoted Sadeqi as saying.

Referring to the last deck of the phases namely 24B, he said that the satellite platform has made 94% progress, and will be shipped soon.

“Gas produced from this platform will be transferred to the Phase 23 main deck,” he said, adding that the pipe laying process of all three phases is now complete.

Almost 220 km of pipes have been laid to connect all the offshore decks and to the onshore facilities.

Phases 22-24 will collectively produce 56 mcm of sour gas, 75,000 barrels gas condensate and 400 tons of sulfur on a daily basis. They will also produce 1 million tons of LPG and 1 million tons of ethane per year.

World’s Largest Field

SP is the world’s largest gas field is shared between Iran and Qatar. It covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which, called South Pars, is in Iran’s territorial waters. The remaining 6,000 sq.km, known as North Dome, is in Qatar’s territorial waters.

Iran is developing the mega gas project in 24 phases. Most of the phases are fully operational.

More than $72 billion has been invested in the giant energy ventures since work started. Investments are forecast to rise to $87 billion.

The field is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about 8% of the world’s reserves and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.

Iran uses natural gas for heating purposes and as feedstock for thermal power stations that constitute more than 80% of its installed electricity generating capacity. Gas is also injected into underground reservoirs to increase crude oil recovery.