Tehran, Iran, Oct. 18
By Mehdi Sepahvand, Dalga Khatinoglu – Trend:
Iran plans to convert surplus oil products to petrochemical materials, Marzieh Shah-Daei, the executive director of National Petrochemical Company, told Trend Oct. 18.
Shah-Daei, who serves as vice-minister of petroleum for petrochemical affairs, added that regarding this fact the country is preparing to commence Persian Gulf Star Refinery, which would make the country self-sufficient in gasoline.
“Therefore, the priority of oil refineries wouldn’t be gasoline production with the highest capacity,” she said.
She said regarding the fact that some of petrochemical plants are located close to refineries, like in Tabriz, Arak and Isfahan, then using a part of the output of refineries in the petrochemical plants as feedstock is being considered.
“The feedstock would be LPG, naphtha and other light distillates,” Shah-Daei added.
During the first half of current fiscal year, which started on March 21, Iran had to import 12 million litters per day (ml/d) of gasoline, about 3 ml/d more than last year and 7.5 ml/d more than the previous fiscal year to March 2014.
Iran plans to increase the oil (and gas condensate) refining capacity from the current 1.8 million barrels per day (mb/d) to 3.1 mb/d by March 2021, according an official document seen by Trend.
The document prepared by Oil Ministry says that three major refineries will become operational by 2021.
The Persian Gulf Star Refinery will add 360,000 b/d, while Siraf Complex, Anahita and Bahman Geno refineries will add 480,000 b/d, 150,000 b/d and 300,000 b/d to the current refinery capacity, the document says.
Below is Iran’s liquid fuels export plan for the next years:
During the last fiscal year, Iran daily produced 67.1 million liters of gasoline, 89.39 million liters of gas oil, 10.13 million liters of kerosene, 64.49 million liters of fuel oil, as well as 10.66 million liters of liquid gas.
On the other hand, Iran plans to attract $52 billion investment to double its petrochemical production capacity by 2021, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said Oct. 17.
Currently, the nominal capacity of petrochemical production stands at above 60 million tons per year (mt/y), but the actual production capacity stood at 48.5 mt/d during the last fiscal year.
Iran projected to produce 55.7 mt/d of petrochemicals for the current fiscal year.