Goureh-Jask oil transfer project has registered 25% progress and is expected to be completed by 2022, managing director of the Petroleum Engineering and Development Co., a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, said.
Work on the project began last summer and in less than two years, light, heavy and ultra-heavy crude oil will be transferred from Goureh oil terminal in Bushehr Province to Jask Port in Hormozgan Province, the Oil Ministry news agency Shana reported Touraj Dehghani as saying.
To cost an estimated $2 billion, the project includes construction of a 1,000-kilometer pipeline for transferring 1 million barrels of crude oil a day produced in the West Karoun region with 13 oilfields to Jask, off the Sea of Oman.
West Karoun's in-place reservoir is estimated to hold 67 billion barrels of crude.
PEDEC is the main contractor, which is cooperating with other engineering and consulting firms in the project.
Ahvaz Industrial Pipe Company, Isfahan-based Mobarakeh Steel Company and Khouzestan Oxin Steel Company have joined hands to produce the pipelines.
“Raw materials for producing the pipes are supplied by Mobarakeh company and are made into special steel sheets in Oxin company. The pipes are manufactured in Ahvaz," Dehghani said.
Indigenized Equipment
Prior to the new US sanctions announced in late 2018, PEDEC had to buy 20,000 tons of steel plate sheets from Germany and China because it did not have the technology to produce it. Due to the US hostilities, penalties and economic warfare, local companies started manufacturing the pipes.
So far almost 200 kilometers of pipes have been manufactured and sent to Bushehr.
In addition “50 heavy duty pumps for the project are manufactured in PUMPIRAN and PETCO companies (in Tabriz),” head of PEDEC added.
This is the first time 6.2-megawatt pumps are manufactured at home with the help of domestic expertise.
The project includes building 20 oil storage facilities, pumping stations and one oil export terminal.
Storage and Export
When ready, Jask Oil Terminal will have the capacity to store up to 30 million barrels and export one million barrels per day of crude.
Kharg Terminal in the Persian Gulf has been Iran’s main oil export terminal. Jask will become another major terminal, and it has the advantage that oil tankers need not pass through the narrow and permanently crowded Strait of Hormuz.
The strategic strait is the world’s most important chokepoint through which 20 million barrels of oil pass every day.
The project is going on while Iran oil exports have dropped considerably since the re-imposition of US sanctions.
The exact level of Iran’s oil exports is opaque, but according to information provider S&P Global Platts, crude exports in September was at 400,000 barrel per day, down from 1.95 million bpd in the same month of 2018.
Another source, cargo tracking firm Kpler, sees export volumes for August at considerably lower levels - at just 160,000 bpd, down from and 2 million bpd in August 2018.
