Iran's huge petrol refinery under construction

Iran is almost halfway through with the construction of its biggest petrol refinery, a deputy oil minister announced on Monday.Speaking to FNA, Deputy Oil Minister Alireza Zeiqami noted the status quo in the 'Persian Gulf Star Gas Condensates Refinery' construction project, and said, "Construction works at this huge refinery are well underway at present." "So far, the construction works at this refinery have progressed 48% and we hope that we can launch the first phase of this refinery in due time," he added. According to the deputy oil minister, the refinery has a daily feeding capacity of 360,000 barrels of gas condensates. Energy experts say that Iran has 137.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and 29.61 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves. In June this year, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had announced discovery of another large deposit of crude oil and natural gas in the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf. It was estimated that the discovery would increase Iran's crude and gas condensate reserves by one billion barrels. The South Pars gas field is located in the Persian Gulf, north of Iran's maritime border with Qatar. The field's reserves are estimated at 14 trillion cubic meters of gas and 18 billion barrels of gas condensates.