Iran began operating a 650 billion rials ($53 million) storage facility for oil products in the southeastern city of Kerman.
(Tehran Times) 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
today’s 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.
Iran’s crude output has declined in the face of economic
sanctions that the U.S. and allied nations have imposed to
counter the Islamic republic’s nuclear program. A European Union
banned purchases of Iranian crude in July, and Iran’s 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.