Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.16
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Four new oil storage facilities, with a total capacity of 4 million barrels, will be inaugurated in Iran's Kharg Island, located in the Gulf, by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 2014), the Mehr News agency quoted managing director of the Iranian Oil Terminal Company Pirouz Mousavi as saying on Dec. 16.
The oil storage capacity of Kharg Island is currently about 28 million barrels Mousavi added.
The Kharg terminals have the capacity to export 5 million barrels of oil per day, he noted.
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 at the start of 2012, before EU sanctions took effect, ranking it second among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, behind Saudi Arabia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The IEA estimated Iran's daily crude production at 2.71 million barrels in November, up 30,000 barrels from October, and ranking it sixth within OPEC, after Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Venezuela.
Edited by C.N.