Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 24
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran will be able to refine over 60 percent of its crude oil domestically in five years, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the Iranian oil minister said.
"By the end of the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (2016-2021) Iran will increase the domestic oil processing capacity in order to cover about 63-64 percent of its crude oil production," said Zanganeh, the oil ministry's official SHANA news agency reported Feb. 24.
He further said that Iran plans to increase its oil and condensate output to 5.3 million barrels per day by 2021.
"About 2.3 million barrels of crude oil, as well as one million barrels of condensate will be processed by domestic refineries in line with the purposes of the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan," Zanganeh said.
Iran is actively investing in upgrading its domestic refining operations over the next decade - a number of projects are underway, including a gasoline production improvement project at Bandar Abbas, and a new refinery train project at Abadan refinery.
Tehran is also expanding its refining capacity with a focus on monetizing domestic condensate output.
Persian Gulf Star refinery (capacity to refine 360,000 bpd of condensate), Pars refinery (120,000 bpd of condensate), Anahita refinery (150,000 bpd of heavy crude), SIRAF refining complex (480,000 bpd of condensate) and Jask refinery (300,000 bpd of heavy crude) are the main projects of Iran's oil refining sector.
Zanganeh further touched upon the country's objectives in petrochemical sector, saying the value of petrochemical products' output is planned to reach $41 billion by 2021.
Such a giant leap demands $50 billion investment, he added.
Iran's petrochemical output hit 44.4 million tons in the past Iranian fiscal year, 10 percent more year-on-year. Petrochemical complexes in Iran had to work below the actual production capacity due to the shortage of natural gas as feedstock, old production units, and the problem of sanctions, which has caused a decline in exports.
The output is expected to remain unchanged this fiscal year (to end March 2016), meanwhile it is forecasted that the actual petrochemical production level will reach 52 million tons the next fiscal year.
Iran's petrochemical output capacity currently stands at 60 million tons. The Islamic Republic hopes to bring this capacity to 120 million tons by 2020 and 180 million tons by 2025.