Stop of Approximately One Billion Cubic Meters of Gas Flaring in Iran

Iran has launched a gas processing complex on Qeshm Island with an annual processing capacity of 827 million cubic meters of gas. According to the official website of the National Iranian Oil Company on Thursday, March 1, the cost of this refinery is about $85 million, and the country's profit from stopping the flaring of gas from the Hayan oil field and nearby small fields is $300 million annually. According to the World Bank, Iran wastes about 16.5 billion cubic meters of gas annually in oil and gas fields and partially completed refineries due to a lack of technology and investment, with this amount of gas valued at approximately $3.5 billion per year. Previously, Iran's Minister of Oil stated that $5 billion in investment is needed to prevent flaring. In other words, by stopping flaring, Iran can recover its total investment cost in less than a year and a half and gain several billion dollars annually. Investment statistics for the Qeshm gas processing complex also indicate that the return on investment for this project will be realized in 3.5 months. According to official statistics, due to non-compliance with environmental standards over the past decades, Iran emits over 600 million tons of carbon dioxide and about 200 million tons of other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually, placing it among the top 10 greenhouse gas-emitting countries in the world. Part of these gases is produced through flaring. The National Iranian Oil Company report states that the sulfur content in the associated gases produced from the Hayan oil field is 18,000 parts per million (ppm). Associated gas is produced alongside oil from fields, and if the necessary technology for its collection is not available, it is inevitably burned in flares. Burning gas with such a high sulfur content (3.6 times the concentration of sulfur in the South Pars field) in flares not only produces various greenhouse gases but also generates a significant amount of sulfur oxide gas, which reacts with water vapor or rain to form sulfuric acid, leading to acid rain. According to the Ministry of Oil's own assessment, the country emits about 1.5 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere annually. After processing at the Hayan complex, the sulfur content of the gas is reduced to 3 ppm, which complies with the standards of the National Iranian Gas Company.