Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 18
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Iran and China will sign biggest ever refinery deal worth $3 billion in February, Abbas Kazemi, Iran’s deputy oil minister, said.
A high-ranking Chinese delegation will visit Tehran in February to sign deal on Abadan refinery renovation and development, Kazemi said, Mehr news agency reported Jan. 18.
He further said that China opened the first letter of credit (LC) worth $1.3 billion for the refinery’s development project last week.
The project is aimed at decreasing the fuel oil output of Abadan refinery and increasing the output of more valuable products, including gasoline and diesel.
Last January Kazemi, who heads the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), warned against postponing the process of signing the contract for development of the refinery by the Chinese side.
He said that the NIORDC has been discussing the issue of financing the project with a Chinese financier over the past several years.
The capacity of the aged Abadan Refinery is 400,000 barrels per day with three crude oil distillation units processing 250,000 barrels of crude per day. The distillation units suffer from low productivity due to their time-worn technology and equipment which were installed over 70 years ago.