Baku, Azerbaijan, May 11
By Dalga Khatinoglu – Trend:
Iran started a plan 17 years ago to increase its on-land oil storage capacity by 10 million barrels.
The plan had included 17 oil storage facilities initially, but then the number of facilities decreased to 15 with 8 million barrels capacity.
According to a document, prepared by Iran’s Oil Ministry and seen by Trend, all of them were commenced, excepting Goureh and Omidiyyeh facilities.
|
Number of storage |
Total capacity Million barrels |
Progress |
|
|
Goureh |
6 |
4 |
94.06% |
|
Omidiyyeh |
2 |
1 |
84.13% |
|
Siri |
1 |
0.5 |
100% |
|
Bahreghan |
1 |
0.5 |
100% |
|
Ahvaz |
5 |
2 |
100% |
Goureh and Omidiyyeh projects are projected to become operational in August and December 2017 respectively.
Iran also has a 28-million barrel oil storage capacity in Kharg Island, Iran’s major oil terminal in the Persian Gulf.
Iran faced tight sanctions during 2012-2015, imposed by the West on its nuclear activities, which led to halving its oil export. Iran says its unsold oil and gas condensate stockpile reached 70 million barrels in 2015, but all of them have been exported since January 2016, when the sanctions were removed.
According to another document, seen by Trend in July 2016, Iran also plans to expand its oil product storage capacities.
Iran plans to complete four refineries, with overall capacity of 1.290 mb/d, and inaugurate them in the coming years.
The Persian Gulf Star Refinery will add 360,000 b/d, while Siraf Complex, Anahita and Bahman Geno refineries will add 480,000 b/d, 150,000 b/d and 300,000 b/d to Iran’s current refining capacity, which stands at 1.8 mb/d.
Iran’s current nominal oil refining capacity stands at 1.8 mb/d, but the actual capacity is less than 1.7 mb/d.
Iran plans to start gasoline export and increase gas oil export in the coming years, as demonstrated in the chart below:
---
Dalga Khatinoglu is the head of Trend Agency’s Iran news service, follow him on Twitter: @dalgakhatinoglu