“Some 12 million liters of quality gasoline will be produced in the first phase of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery by the first half of the next [Iranian calendar] year (starting March 21),” Deputy Oil Minister Alireza Zeighami said on Monday.
Stating that the first phase of the refinery has shown an 80-percent progress, Zeighami said, when in full swing, the refinery “will emerge as the country’s gasoline export hub.”
“With the inauguration of the three phases of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery, some 36 million liters of gasoline per day conforming to Euro-5 standards will be produced,” said the Iranian official, adding that the output will more than meet the domestic needs, making way for exports.
On February 4, Iran’s Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said Iran will become an exporter of gasoline in less than two months.
Addressing the inauguration ceremony of a new gasoline-making unit at Abadan Refinery, Qasemi said the facility had made Iran independent of gasoline imports, adding that Iran would become an exporter of gasoline by the next Iranian year.
The new unit of Abadan Refinery will add two million liters of 94- and 95-octane super-premium gasoline to the daily production capacity of the Abadan facility, Iran’s oldest refinery.
The Iranian oil minister also said that the Islamic Republic has undertaken to optimize several other refineries, including those in Bandar Abbas, Tabriz and Isfahan, saying that all of these projects will come on stream by March 2014 at the latest.
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