Report: Iran boosts refinery capacity

TEHRAN, May 27 (UPI) -- Iran has raised its oil refining capacity by 60,000 barrels a day with development at the Bandar Abbas refinery, the deputy oil minister said.

Mohammad-Reza Nematzadeh told the state-owned Islamic Republic News Agency the Bandar Abbas project has achieved 90 percent progress, which will boost capacity to 320,000 barrels of oil per day from the current 260,000 barrels a day, IRNA reported.

Iran's other major refineries are at Abadan, the largest with a capacity of 400,000 barrels a day, Isfahan, Tehran, Arak and Tabriz.

The refineries mostly produce heavy fuel oil and not enough gasoline, forcing Iran to spend heavily on gasoline imports. Its future plans are to substantially boost gasoline output.

Separately, the Tehran Times quoted Aminollah Eskandari, director of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co.'s refining affairs, that the development of existing refineries will help Iran reach self-sufficiency in gasoline production in three years.

"Currently development and renovation of the existing refineries with a $7 billion budget has been started and, based on the schedule, about 34 million liters (nearly 9 million gallons) will be added to the country's gasoline production capacity by 2012, the report said.

He said Iran currently consumes about 65 million liters (17.1 million gallons) of gasoline a day, against a daily domestic production of 42 million liters (about 11 million gallons).

Eskandari said with the completion of the development projects, the domestic gasoline output per day is expected to reach 76 million liters (more than 20 million gallons).