By Dalga Khatinoglu
According to Iran's Anzai port's latest report, Iran imported 24,707 tons of oil products from Neka port between March 21 and December 21, while this figure for the same period in the previous year was 52,141 tons.
According to the report, there has not been any non-oil cargo delivered to Neka port during the last two years.
However, a document released by Fars News Agency last week, says Iran imported a huge amount of non-standard gasoline through Neka port after last February.
The source and amount of imported gasoline in the copy of published document is illegible.
Iran hasn't received any oil products cargo from Anzali port, but taking petroleum products from Shahid Rajaee (988,494 tons), Emam Khomeini (92,724 tons), Chabahar (40 tons), Bushehr (20,212 tons), Noshahr (66,734), Amirabad (18,386 tons), Fereidoon Kenar (9,090 tons), Khorramshar (53 tons), Abadan (53 tons) and Lengeh (28 tons) ports reached a total of 1.22 million tons during March 21 to December 21, 2014.
Noshahr, Neka, Fereidoon Kenar and Amirabad ports are located on the Caspian Sea, therefore Iran imported 118,700 tons of oil products from Caspian littoral countries during the last nine months.
If the total imported cargoes are gasoline, then Iran imported above 900,000 barrels, or 68 million liters of gasoline from its northern neighbors.
It's quite possible, because Iran officially reported last week that the country imported about 4.5 million liters of gasoline per day during the current fiscal year. This figure equals to one million metric tons for the period. On the other hand, Iran has little need to import diesel and no need to import other liquid fuels.
The statistics show that Iran increased petroleum products imports 138 percent during this period, while importing oil products from Caspian littoral countries decreased a little. Iran's petroleum products export also increased significantly. Iran says it replaced 11.5 billion cubic meters more gas with liquid fuels in power plants and got a chance to have 11 billion liters of diesel and fuel oil (or around 1.8 million tons) extra export capacity during mid-March 2014 to mid January 2015. This allows Iran increase oil products export from 6.5 million tons to 8.1 million tons in the last 9 months.
Edited by CN
Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector, head of Trend Agency's Iran news service.
Follow him on @dalgakhatinoglu
