Azerbaijan, Baku, May.1/ Trend, R.Zamanov
The oil storage capacty of Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf, will reach 28 million barrels by January, 2014, Pirouz Mousavi, managing director of the Iranian Oil Terminal Company said on Wednesday.
Currently, four oil storage facilities are under construction on the island, the IRNA News Agency quoted Mousavi as saying.
The facilities will come on stream at the cost of 420 billion rials (about $34.25 million), he said.
Construction planning for these facilites began in January 2011. They are supposed to come on stream in 36 months, Mousavi explained.
Mousavi was quoted by the Fars news agency last month as saying that Iran was building several land based oil storage sites at locations including Kharg Island and Assaluyeh.
Mousavi said Iran faced no problems with oil exports.
"We have no consignment on the water and if there is any, it is waiting for loading and exports," Mousavi was quoted as saying.
Reuters reported on April 24 that Iran is storing millions of barrels of oil in tankers in its territorial waters as Tehran struggles with tougher Western sanctions on its vital seaborne exports, ship industry sources say.
Iran's oil revenues have fallen by about 50 percent since tough EU and U.S. measures were imposed last year. This is hurting business and cutting living standards for ordinary Iranians.
Ship industry sources gave varying estimates on how much oil Iran was storing at sea, but all said the volume was higher.
Data from maritime intelligence publisher IHS Fairplay estimated 10 of Iran's supertankers, each able to carry up to 2 million barrels of crude, were storing oil, together with one smaller tanker able to carry up to 1 million barrels.
The data showed that two additional supertankers were also likely to be deployed on floating storage, based on the length of time they were stationary, meaning as much as 25 million barrels in total.
