Iran began operating a 650 billion rials ($53 million) storage facility for oil products in the southeastern city of Kerman, Tehran Times reported.The unit can store as much as 350 million liters (92 million gallons) of oil products and includes four tanks for kerosene, five for gasoline, two for diesel and two for jet fuel, the state-run newspaper said today.
National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Co.s managing director, Mostafa Kashkouli said on Jan. 20 that his country plans to set up facilities by the end of the next Iranian year to add capacity for 1 billion liters of products, according to todays report. The Iranian year starts on March 21. Iran has storage for 11.5 billion liters of fuel, enough to supply domestic needs for 58 days, the newspaper said.
Irans crude output has declined in the face of economic sanctions that the U.S. and allied nations have imposed to counter the Islamic republics nuclear program. A European Union banned purchases of Iranian crude in July, and Irans oil exports have slumped. Crude shipments fell 40 percent in the last nine months of 2012, state-run Iranian Students News Agency reported on Jan. 7, in a rare acknowledgment of the impact the sanctions have had.
Iran, formerly the second-biggest producer in the 12-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has slipped to fifth place behind Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela and Kuwait, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It pumped 2.66 million barrels a day of crude in December, the data show.
By Bloomberg
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