Baku, Azerbaijan, March 4
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Iran needs over $14 billion worth of investment in order to modernize its nine refineries, Abbas Kazemi, the Islamic Republic's deputy oil minister, said.
The oil ministry plans to modernize the refineries to reduce their mazut output from 26 percent to below 7 percent and improve the quality of production, Kazemi said, IRNA news agency reported March 4.
The development plans were suspended in the past years due to international sanctions, Kazemi, who heads state-owned National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), said.
He further said that Iran has attracted $3 billion worth of foreign investment in recent two weeks to upgrade its biggest refinery, Abadan.
The development project is aimed at decreasing the share of mazut in the total output of refinery from the current 40 percent to below 20 percent, Kazemi said.
Currently, the Abadan refinery located in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, processes 380,000-400,000 barrels of oil per day, sharing about 14 percent of the total actual output of oil products.
Iran is the world's third major mazut producer, which indicates low performance of the country's refineries.