Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 20
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran has stopped importing diesel fuel.
Director of the International Affairs Department at National Iranian Oil Company Mohsen Ghamsari said Iran would start exporting diesel fuel in the near future, Iran's Shana news agency reported on Feb. 20.
Over the past months, a number of diesel fuel consignments have been imported, but for the time being import of diesel fuel has been halted, he said.
Abbas Kazemi, Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company said on Feb. 7 that Iran predicts 20 million liters of surplus diesel fuel per day for the next Iranian calendar year, starting on March 21.
He added that the exports of diesel fuel to Iraq and Afghanistan can be increased next year.
He added that 100 million liters of diesel fuel is being produced in the country, of which 24 million liters meet Euro-4 standards.
Kazemi said on Aug. 6 that Iran exported its first consignment of diesel fuel to Afghanistan in eight years.
"The supply of natural gas to power plants is sufficient and the need to supply diesel fuel to the power plants has been removed. So, the surplus of diesel fuel which is produced in oil refineries will be exported", Kazemi said.
A year after ex-President Mohammad Khatami took the office in 1997, Iran not only became self-sufficient in producing diesel fuel but also started to export the surplus amount.
The situation remained the same during his eight years in office. But once Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became Iran's president, the country once again started to import diesel fuel.
Edited by CN