Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 12
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
Four new oil storage facilities, with a total capacity of 4 million barrels, are currently under construction in Iran's Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf, Abdollah Ahmadi, an official with Iranian Oil Terminal Company Pirouz Mousavi, said on January 12, the IRNA News Agency reported.
"The facilities are now 97 percent complete," Ahmadi said, adding that they will come on stream by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 2014).
The oil storage capacity of Kharg Island is currently about 28 million barrels.
The Kharg terminals have the capacity to export 5 million barrels of oil per day.
Iran, once OPEC's second-largest oil producer, will be unable to sustain an increase in crude exports that support its economy when some measures to curb those shipments are eased, the International Energy Agency said, Bloomberg reported on Dec. 11.
The European Union said last month that it intends to suspend a ban on insuring tankers carrying Iranian oil in December or January.
Iran produced 3.5 million barrels of crude a day in early 2012, before EU sanctions took effect, ranking second among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, after Saudi Arabia, according to Bloomberg's data.
The IEA estimated Iran's daily crude production at 2.71 million barrels in November, up 30,000 barrels from October, and ranking sixth within OPEC, after Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Venezuela.