By Dalga Khatinoglu
Iran says it bunkered millions of metric tons of liquid fuel to ships sailing through the Gulf in the first ten months of the current Iranian fiscal year.
The manager of the commercial division at National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC) Mohammad Reza Mazloumi says that 3 million metric tons of fuel oil (worth $1.35 billion, a 30 percent increase), 107,000 metric tons of gas oil (worth $96 million, a 30 percent increase) were supplied to ships in the 10-month period (March 21, 2014 - January 20, 2015).
Iran has a target to bunker 4 million metric tons of fuel oil and gas oil during the current fiscal year.
On the other hand, according to the latest Ports Report, Iran has 9.17 million metric tons and 1.38 million metric tons of oil products export and import respectively during this 10-month period.
Noshahr, Neka, Fereidoon Kenar and Amirabad ports are located on the Caspian Sea; therefore Iran imported 132,000 metric tons from Caspian littoral countries during the last ten months, while this figure was 118,700 tons during nine months.
Iran officially reported last month that the country imported about 4.5 million liters of gasoline per day during the current fiscal year.
The statistics show that Iran increased petroleum trade both in imports and exports.
Iran increased gas supply to power plants by more than 12 billion cubic meters during the last ten months, which caused decreasing fuel oil and gas oil usage in this sector by about 11.5 billion liters (or around 2 million tons).
Last year, Iran consumed 27 billion liters of liquid fuels due to the gas shortage. Iran's 150 thermal power plants need more than 200 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) of gas, but Iran was able to supply only a little more than 140 mcm/d in the last 10 months, which indicates a 40 percent increase year-to-year.
edited by CN
Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector, head of Trend Agency's Iran news service.
Follow him on @dalgakhatinoglu