Page 63 - IRANRptOct21

Iran’s Persian Gulf Star Refinery oil product exports ‘up 200%’
Iran finalises deals with local firms
dispute with the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC).
A 25-year gas sales and purchase contract (GSPC) was signed between NIOC and Dana affiliate Crescent Petroleum in 2005 for the UAE Gas Project, which was intended to provide gas supplies to Crescent beginning in December 2005, but no volumes were ever received, according to Dana.
“The company has been updated by Crescent Petroleum regarding the issuing of the final award for damages in the first arbitration against NIOC which was commenced in 2009, pursuant to which a liability award was already made in 2014,” it said.
Dana noted that this concludes the first arbitration case, covering the first 8.5 years of the GSPC from 2005 to 2014. A second arbitration is ongoing relating to the remaining 16.5 years of the contract from 2014 to 2030, which Dana described as “a much larger claim”. The final hearing is to be held in Paris in October 2022, with a final announcement on the award of damages anticipated in 2023.
Dana said that it would provide further updates on the collection of the awarded sum in due course with the $607.5mn damages expected to “significantly bolster” the company’s balance sheet.
Meanwhile, Dana and Crescent, which are the joint operators of the Pearl Petroleum consortium in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, are working to add another 250mn cubic feet (7.1mn cubic metres) per day of gas from the Khor Mor gas field by 2023 under the KM250 expansion project.
Exports of petroleum products from Iran’s Persian Gulf Star Refinery (PGSR) increased by 200% y/y in 2020, the Iranian oil ministry’s SHANA energy news service reported on June 9.
“It is estimated that 1.6mn tonnes of oil products were shipped to international markets in 2020,” refinery director Mohammad Dadvar was quoted as saying. Iran’s gasoline production has roughly doubled in three years, according to officials, allowing the country to become the biggest gasoline exporter in West Asia.
Despite US sanctions and fluctuating oil prices, driving up gasoline exports remained on the government's agenda, Dadvar was also reported as saying. “When there are surplus reserves, they can be sold through the Iranian Energy Exchange with less difficulty compared to crude oil,”Dadvar added.
PGSR is the largest in a significant project undertaken by the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co. (NIORDC) which saw total Iranian refining capacity increase from 1.55mn bpd in 2017 to 2.2mn bpd last year.
The launch of the 360,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery was also central to Iran achieving fuel self-sufficiency. Phase 1 was officially inaugurated in April 2017, with the first shipment of gasoline delivered for distribution two months later.
Phase 2 began producing Euro-V gasoline shortly after its own official launch in February 2018 and was running at full capacity by June that year. The third phase was inaugurated in October 2019, although it had already been operational for several months before the official opening.
Each phase was designed to produce 12mn litres per day (lpd) of Euro 5 gasoline, plus 4.5mn lpd of Euro 4 standard diesel, 1mn lpd of kerosene and 300,000 lpd of LPG.
Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh in January oversaw the signing of eight deals between the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) and local companies to maintain and increase production levels for seven southern oilfields and one offshore asset.
As reported by Middle East Oil & Gas (MEOG), the $1.2bn worth of deals
63 IRAN Country Report October 2021 www.intellinews.com