In line with policies to reduce environmental pollution and upgrade the quality of refined products, a diesel treatment unit of Isfahan Oil Refining Company in Isfahan Province has come on stream, the managing director of the company said.
“Costing $600 million, the project will reduce sulfur content in diesel from 6,000 parts per million to less than 10 ppm,” Mohsen Qadiri was also quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry’s news agency.
Completed in two years, the new facility has a daily capacity of removing 300 tons of sulfur from diesel, which will also earn at least $270 million.
Sulfur is used mainly to produce sulfuric acid, an important chemical widely used in the fertilizer, rubber, steel manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries.
As per its environmental commitments, the company is also making efforts to reduce the amount of sulfur in mazut and gradually reduce the production of this eco-unfriendly fuel by converting it into other products.
Mazut is among highly polluting products. It is a heavy, low quality fuel oil used in power plants and factories. The main type of bunker oil for ships is heavy mazut, derived as a residue from crude oil distillation.
The company now produces 4 million liters of Euro-5 diesel a day.
Established in 1979, the refinery produces 25% of the country’s petroleum products, including 16 million liters of Euro-4 diesel, 8 million liters of Euro-4 and 12 million liters of Euro-5 gasoline per day. It currently supplies fuel to 16 provinces.
Located on an area of 340 hectares in northwest Isfahan, the company produces about 30 types of petroleum products.
The company has succeeded in removing aromatic compounds, sulfur and benzene from AW-406 solvent and converting it to ++AW-406 solvent.
Isfahan’s refinery is the main supplier of feedstock to Sepahan Oil Company, Isfahan Petrochemical Company, Arak Petrochemical Company, Jey Oil Refining Company and Iran Chemical Industries Company.
Crude oil needed by the refinery comes from Maroun Oilfield in Khuzestan Province via a 430-km pipeline.
Wastewater Treatment Unit
According to Qadiri, the company's wastewater treatment unit has been launched to meet the refinery’s water requirements.
"The plant, with a capacity of 750 cubic meters per hour, cost $8 million and was built in two years," he said.
The managing director said the refinery buys wastewater from towns like Shahin-Shahr in the vicinity of the company.
“The municipal wastewater is piped to the refinery and reused after treatment in the new plant,” he said.
He had earlier warned that the refinery would have to either reduce or stop production, if the worsening water crisis at the refinery was not resolved.
The huge refinery consumes 1,000 cubic meters of water per hour, of which 700 cm are recycled and reused.
"We have been grappling with water scarcity for a long time," he said, adding that the company processes 375,000 barrels of crude per day but cannot be sustained for long unless the refining units have sufficient access to water.
Located in the arid regions of Iran with minimal precipitation, Isfahan Province has been struggling with drought for seven years.
“Water flow into Zayandehroud Dam was 1.2 billion cubic meters in 2017, which has now declined to 400 million cubic meters,” he said.
“Of the total flow, 320 mcm are used for drinking purposes and the rest in industries," he said, noting that due to the drastic decline in precipitation, industries have to reduce water consumption by at least 25%.
The use of non-conventional resources (drainage water, water containing toxic elements, sediments and treated or untreated wastewater effluent) has become expedient to help reduce the gap between water supply and demand.
