By the year 1394 (March 2015 - March 2016) one million more barrels of crude oil will be turned into oil products (instead of selling it in the form of crude), "and we will become the largest exporter of oil products in the region", Qassemi said on the sidelines of a ceremony held on Tuesday to launch several optimization units at Shahid Tondgouyan (Tehran) oil refinery.
He said that processing the products, promoting the products' quality and production of new products set an important priority for the Iranian oil and oil refining industry.
As regards the West's sanctions on the Iranian oil industry, Qassemi said, "The National Iranian Oil Company has taken wide strides to cut dependence (on foreign countries) and to confront the sanctions and we are in a good status now."
Shahid Tondgouyan refinery's new units which started operation on Tuesday are able to improve the quality of the refinery's products like gasoline, gasoil and kerosene.
The optimization and quality improvement plan of the refinery's products includes desulphurization of gasoil, sulfur extraction and sulfur recovery.
Also, Shahid Tondgouyan oil refinery's isomerization unit which takes low-octane, normal-paraffins and chemically reshapes them into higher-octane, iso-paraffins, can now produce 2.8 million liters of high quality gasoline per day.
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