Azerbaijan, Baku, April 8 / Trend, A.Yusifzade /
The National Iranian Oil Company has provided crude oil consumption standards aimed to improve energy efficiency of its nine oil refineries, PANA reported quoting the head of the Iranian Fuel Consumption Optimizing Organization Mehdi Sharif as saying.
Iran aims to reduce its refineries crude oil waste ratio from the current 9.6 percent to 4.5 percent through improving efficiency in refining and distribution system, Sharif said.
According to Sharif, this ratio in industrialized countries amounts to 2.5 percent.
Some 35.6 million barrels of crude oil wasting in Iranian oil refineries annually, Sharif added.
Iran now has the largest oil refinery in the Middle East after the inauguration of an expansion to an existing facility by Iranian Oil Minister Seyed Masoud Mirkazemi this year.
The Imam Khomeini refinery in Shazand near the central city of Arak will have a refining capacity of 250,000 barrels per day by September up from 170,000 barrels per day making it the largest in the region.
The refinery when fully operational will also have a petrol production capacity of 16 million liters a day. The refinery expansion cost $3.3 billion, 33 percent of which was financed by China's Sinopec and the rest by Iran.
Oil rich Iran which was slapped with stringent sanctions last year targeting its energy sector, particularly petrol imports has a dilapidated refining capacity despite being OPEC's second largest crude exporter. However, it has now reached self sufficiency in petrol production partly through the manufacture of fuel at petrochemical plants.
Petrol consumption in the Islamic republic has also fallen since the government cut subsidies on energy products from December 19, 2010.
Mirkazemi said that earlier Iran planned to raise its total production of petrol to 65 million liters a day by September which officials say would be more than the amount consumed domestically and help Tehran export fuel.