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DMEA refInInG DMEA
Iran continues to develop refining sector
mIddle eaSt
THE National Iranian Oil Re ning and Distri- bution Co. (NIORDC) has announced plans to increase the country’s re ning capacity to 2.4mn bpd by March 20, 2020.
Making the announcement, NIORDC CEO Alireza Sadiqabadi said the country’s crude oil and gas condensate re ning capacity was cur- rently 2.15mn bpd.
e downstream sector has already experi- enced signi cant growth in recent years, with the agship 360,000 bpd Persian Gulf Star Re nery (PGSR) the most notable addition and central to Iran’s achievement of fuel self-sufficiency. National re ning capacity stood at 1.55mn bpd in 2017.
Sadiqabadi noted that “850,000 barrels of the oil and gas condensate which were banned from entering international markets were consumed domestically”.
In February, he said that Iran was producing at least 76 million litres per day (lpd) of gasoline and 44 million lpd of diesel, making it the top producer of both products in the Middle East.
making changes
The overhaul of the sector is also resulting in improvements to refining practices. Last week, Iran’s Financial Tribune highlighted
improvements made by the 25,000 bpd Kerman- shah re nery to reduce pollution.
The English language daily reported that the facility had replaced furnace burners, con- structed a vacuum distillation unit (VDU), and also carried out studies on the “construc- tion of quality units and production capacity development”.
Secretary-general of the Oil Re ning Indus- try Cooperative Association (ORICA) Nasser Ashouri was quoted as saying that the construc- tion and installation of the new production units would cost around $300mn.
Kermanshah is expected to produce higher quality, cleaner fuels, with Ashouri noting “high-octane gasoline, low-sulphur fuel oil and gas oil with [a sulphur content] below 50 parts per million”.
e facility currently has a production slate of 100,000 lpd of liquid petroleum gas (LPG), 750,000 lpd of gasoline, 437,000 lpd of kerosene and 750,000 lpd of fuel oil. e re nery was one of several that were chosen to process crude trucked over the border from the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq in mid-2018.
Meanwhile, work is being carried out to upgrade the 9th South Pars re nery catering to output from Phase 12 of the o shore project.
Week 26 03•July•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P9
