Baku, Azerbaijan, May 24 By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran's strategic fuel storage including gasoline and diesel will increase to 13 billion liters by March 2017, Abdollah Molla Bagher, an official with the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIODPC), said. He further said that two new fuel storage facilities will be launched by March 2017, Mehr news agency reported May 24.
Once the two new storage facilities including Birjand with a capacity of 100 million liters and Urmia with capacity of 120 million liters become operational, Iran's fuel storage capacity will become 13 billion liters, he said. Five new storage facilities are under construction as well, Molla Bagher added. Last fiscal year (ended March 20) three liquid fuel storage facilities including Mahshahr fuel storage facility with a capacity of 300 million liters, Malayer fuel storage facility with a capacity of 68 million liters and Shiraz fuel storage facility with a capacity of 168 million liters became operational, the official added.
The daily gasoline consumption in Iran stands at about 85.8 million liters per day, meanwhile the country's diesel consumption reaches 64 million liters on a daily basis. Over the past Iranian year, the gasoline import to Iran increased by 100 percent. In the meantime, the country's gasoline consumption rose by 2 percent. During the last Iranian fiscal year, Iran imported nine million liters of gasoline per day, whereas the number was 4.5 million per day a year earlier.
The country's nine refineries averagely produced 62.5 million liters of gasoline per day during the last fiscal year. Iran says that would stop gasoline import by August 2016 after the Persian Gulf Star refinery's first phase becomes operational. The Islamic Republic currently imports only Euro-4 gasoline.