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Iran’s New Refinery Opening Is a Poke in US Eye

(Tuesday, February 19, 2019) 13:29

Iran is now a gasoline exporter but the country is not exporting any volumes for the moment, preferring to build up its stocks first, Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh says.

The third phase of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery came online Monday, marking self-sufficiency in gasoline with a total production of more than 100 million liters per day.

“Fortunately, we do not need to import gasoline anymore. We have reached self-sufficiency. We can export our produced gasoline but have no export plans,” Zangeneh said after the inauguration in Bandar Abbas.

Iran has imported no gasoline since September and sees no need to do so, because the country is now virtually an exporter of the strategic fuel.

“However, we intentionally do not export gasoline because we want to raise the country's gasoline stocks,” Zangeneh said.

Despite being a major oil producer for decades, Iran struggled to meet its domestic fuel needs for years because of a lack of refining capacity which made the country prone to foreign sanctions.

However, when US President Donald Trump decided in May to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic, he ruffled no feathers among fuel purveyors in Iran.

Iran produced less than 50 million liters per day of gasoline before the former Obama administration imposed sanctions on Tehran in 2011 when consumption stood at about 60 million liters a day. That meant the country had to purchase around 10 million liters per day from international vendors.

Last summer when overall gasoline consumption stood at 91 million liters, Iran's production capacity had already surpassed 93 million liters, according to figures provided by Ministry of Petroleum.

The launch of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery’s third phase on Tuesday raised the overall gasoline production capacity to 105 million liters a day.

“This is a 67% increase from last Aban (October 2017)” when Iran produced 63 million liters a day of gasoline, Deputy Minister of Petroleum Alireza Sadeqabadi has said.

According to Sadeqabadi, Iran will have produced 20 million liters of surplus gasoline in the second six months of the Persian year which ends on March 21, PressTV wrote.

The Persian Gulf Star Refinery is part of the giant South Pars production chain, with a capacity to take in 400,000 barrels per day of gas as feedstock. Zangeneh said the refinery accounts for 20 percent of Iran's 2.1 million barrels of daily refining capacity.

Its construction with 3.5 billion euros ($4.7 billion) of investment began in 2006 and the first phase came into operation in April 2017 and the second phase last June. Zangeneh said the construction of the fourth phase will begin “in the near future”.

Head of Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, an Iranian engineering firm and one of the main contractors involved in the refinery’s construction, said the plan is to build “a 100 percent Iranian refinery” at phase four.

“In the previous phases of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery, we imported 30 percent of the equipment, including hydrogen compressors,” Saeed Mohammad said.

“The construction of these compressors, which require a very sophisticated technology, has been delegated to the IRGC Aerospace Organization for reverse engineering,” he added.

His company is affiliated to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). Mohammad said the entry of Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters into the project was to fill the void from the withdrawal of foreign companies after Iran came under sanctions.

Each of the three phases of the refinery are designed to also produce 4.5 million liters/day of Euro-IV diesel, one million litters/day of kerosene and 300,000 liters a day of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Zangeneh said Iran is currently producing 76 million liters/day of Euro-IV and Euro-V gasoline which is close to consumption figures.

This capacity was zilch six years ago when Iran had to produce gasoline at petrochemical units because of Western sanctions, leaving many cities and towns blanketed with a haze of choking smoke.

President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday praised the inauguration, saying in a televised speech that it comes despite America's "imposing the harshest sanctions" on Iran.

Recently, President Hassan Rouhani in inauguration ceremony of the third phase of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery said Iran has started to tread the path of self-sufficiency and no one can stop the move.

Since 2016 in less than two years, the first, second and third phases of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery were launched, said President Rouhani.

This means Iran is rushing toward self-sufficiency, he added.

He said that it is far from fairness, patriotism, love to the Revolution and ethics to ignore such big achievements.

President Rouhani added, 'There are some problems and shortcomings, but dealing with the economic war and sanctions, we faced some issues because the US and its mercenaries are trying to increase pressure on Iran every day.'

'When the enemy throws a stone, they may break a piece of glass, but we shouldn’t be disconsolate for that.'

Referring to the Iraqi invasion of Iran during the rule of Saddam, he said, 'We resisted with unity during the war; we should do the same thing and not get disappointed.'

'In the 1985, Iran's oil sales stopped totally, but through planning and strong will we started selling it again.'

Rouhani said Iran was the victorious side of the war though it had a lot of problems and the whole world helped Iraq.

But today Iran is in an economic war, he said, stressing 'We need to back each other'.

'If we fail to stand by each other,' President Rouhani said, 'we cannot resist against the plots of the enemy.'

He also said that economic war is harder than the military one.

'In the military war everything is clear, but that’s not the case in the economic war.'

Iranian president went on to refer to efforts by US President Donald Trump's administration to ally with Washington all the other 14 members of the United Nations Security Council to issue a resolution against Iran.

'But at the end, all the 14 other UNSC members spoke against the United States and Trump who was also present at the UNSC session was isolated, Rouhani said.

He also said, “Americans claim that their sanctions are not targeting the Iranian people, but they are working towards undermining the people's health and livelihood.'

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