TEHRAN – Iran’s Deputy Energy Minister Homayoun Haeri said on Sunday that the ministry is considering the use of gas condensate as a replacement for natural gas to be used in the country’s power plants.

A knowledge-based company is studying a plan for modifying the design of the power plants’ turbines so that gas condensate could be used as a replacement fuel for natural gas, Haeri told Mehr News Agency.

The Energy Ministry is ready to cooperate with the Oil Ministry in this regard, he said, adding: “for conducting the necessary research, we have introduced Asaluyeh power plant as the pilot to the mentioned company so that its turbines can be reviewed and redesigned.”

According to the official, the cost of generating electricity from gas condensate is not much different from the cost of generating electricity from natural gas and the point for this project is to diversify the power plants’ fuel basket and make efficient use of the country’s resources.

The use of gas condensate in the fuel basket of the country's power plants was among the major plans that the Energy Ministry announced for the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 19).

As reported, given the increase in gas production from South Pars field (Iran’s biggest gas field shared with Qatar in the Persian Gulf) and the consequent increase in the gas condensate production, it is necessary to consider innovative programs for using it.

Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields.

South Pars gas field is estimated to contain about 18 billion barrels of condensate.

In late May, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh announced that his ministry plans to prevent direct gas condensate exports to make use of it inside the country.

In early February, the minister had said that about 130,000 barrels per day (bpd) of the country's gas condensate are used as feedstock for the country’s petrochemical plants and 80,000 bpd go to domestic refineries, apart from Persian Gulf Star.

EF/MA