Azerbaijan, Baku, Jun.25/ Trend R.Zamanov
Once the Persian Gulf Star refinery and some other underway projects come on stream Iran will become gasoline exporter, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday.
The incumbent president made the remarks at the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of 14 oil projects at the Lavan oil refinery, the Fars News Agency reported.
"The country's achievements in the oil industry during the past few years were great", he said, adding that many wouldn't believe that such achievements are even possible for Iran.
"In the past, the county's oil industry was completely dependent to the foreigners, and they used to put political pressure on the country on account of Iran's dependence," Ahmadinejad explained.
"But thanks to God and the great family of oil industry, Iran has become an exporter of technical and engineering services," he added.
Referring to country's current gasoline production capacity, Ahmadinejad went on to note that, "If Iran was still importing gasoline, we should have paid 30 billion dollars annually to import 80 million liters of gasoline."
Ahmadinejad has inaugurated 14 gasoline production units at Lavan refinery today.
By inauguration of the projects, Lavan refinery's daily gasoline production capacity reached 2.8 million liters from the previous figure of 1,8 million liters per day.
The refinery's gasoline meets euro-4 standard.
The total volume of diesel production capacity of the refinery, based on Euro-4 standard, reached 4 million liters per day from 1.7 million liters per day.
Lavan refinery's LPG (liquid petroleum gas) production capacity reached 100 tons from 30 million tons.
The projects came on stream at the cost of 6.5 trillion rials (some $530 million based on the official 12,260 rial to USD rate).
Deputy oil minister Alierza Zeyqami said on June 21 that once the gasoline production units of Lavan, Esfahan, Bandar Abbas, and Tabriz refineries come on stream, the country's production capacity of gasoline conforming to euro 4 would raise to 50 million liters per day.
Managing Director of Lavan Oil Refinery Company (LORC) Mohammad-Ali Dadvar said on July 17 that Lavan refinery will be exporting some 25 percent of its output, adding that masut and liquefied gas are would be the exported items.
Currently, the refinery produces 1,080,000 liters of gasoline, 1.7 million liters of masut, and 30 tons of liquefied gas per day.
Iran has increased oil refining capacity at the Lavan petrochemical facility by 10,000 barrels per day in an effort to counter the US sanctions and export petrochemical products instead of crude oil, the Mehr News agency reported last week.
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