BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan.5
Trend:
It is said that Mazut has suffocated Tehran, while Mazut is not being used in Tehran, Alborz, and Isfahan provinces power plants, Iran Minister of Oil said.
"We have no restrictions on Mazut exports; just like in the summer when we exported almost all of our Mazut," Bijan Zanganeh, Minister of Oil, said on the sidelines of the 13th OPEC Plus Ministerial Meeting, Trend reports citing Tasnim News Agency.
He rejected the claim that the Ministry of Oil is burning Mazut in power plants due to its inability to export.
Zanganeh said that the reason for using mazut in power plants is due to high gas consumption in the domestic and commercial sectors.
"People's gas consumption was much higher than we had estimated," he said. "Some people think that if they leave the door and window open, the coronavirus has nothing to do with them."
The Minister of Oil added that using mazut is not our invention, it has pollution, but about 4 billion liters of it is used in the world's power plants.
Pollution continues to plague the big cities, especially Tehran, and worn-out cars and power plants using mazut are blamed. Mazut is a heavy, low quality fuel oil usually used in heavy industrial plants and for ships. In the West, mazut is broken down and turned into diesel.
Vice-President Isa Kalantari, one of the officials who has expressed his opposition to using the environmentally dangerous fuel told Tasnim News agency that using mazut is prohibited in the power plants located west of Tehran, while those in the east of the capital are free to use them.