Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 15
By Dalga Khatinoglu – Trend:
Italian Tecnimont and Saipem companies are in talks with Iran to finalize a memorandum of understanding for constructing a refinery in Iran, Gholamreza Soleimani, the managing director of Ghadir Investment Company told IRNA news agency.
Iran’s Pars refinery project with 120,000 barrels per day capacity needs 750 million euro worth of investment, of which 15 percent would be provided by Iran and the rest would be put up by Italian companies, Soleimani said Nov.15.
The feedstock of the refinery would be gas condensate.
Without mentioning any specific date, Soleimani said that the agreement is expected to be sealed soon.
Iran has 9 oil refineries with 1.8 million barrels per day (mb/d) capacity, but the country plants to attract $14 billion worth of investment, mostly from foreign sources, to increase the volume to 3.2 mb/d.
A part of investment would be allocated to modernizing the current refineries.
Iran’s 5-year oil product export plans:
IRNA quoted Abbas Kazemi, the managing director of National Iranian Oil Products Refining and Distribution Company as saying that some $1.2 billion worth of investment is needed for modernizing the Isfahan refinery and the same amount is also needed for the Bandar Abbas Refinery.
The main goal of modernization is to decrease the share of fuel oil in the final products output of refineries from the current 28 percent to below than 10 percent.
Iran has several major new refinery projects. 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 Iran’s current refinery capacity.