With three new storage facilities having gone into operation crude oil storage capacity in the Persian Gulf region has increased by 1.5 million barrels, Mehr news agency reported.
Three storage facilities each with a capacity of 500,000 barrels came on stream in Bandar Abbas Refinery, Hashem Namvar, the refinery's managing director, said Monday.
On account of the refinery's increased feedstock capacity to 350,000 barrels per day, the news storage facilities will be of service in order to expand production of petroleum products and store crude oil and gas condensates.
Increasing oil storage capacity, especially in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormoz, is among the country's strategic policies, to play a trump card when negotiating sales and export of crude oil.
Bandar Abbas Refinery's feedstock storage capacity will increase by 50 percent once the three new storage facilities become operational.
Limited storage capacity may force the government to keep crude on National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC)-controlled tankers at sea. The expansion of land-based storage increases the flexibility of the Iranian supply chain, which could see floating storage volumes fall further over coming months, and will free up NITC tankers for deliveries if required.
Bandar Abbas Oil Refinery produces oil byproducts such as liquid gas, lead-free super gasoline, jet fuel, white oil, variety of dissolvers, gas oil, variety of the raw material for grease, fuel oil, bitumen, different kinds of petroleum, kerosene, asphalt, and sulfur.
Located in the southern city of Bandar Abbas, it operates as a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Refining And Distribution Company.
Meanwhile, Iran's new floating storage unit (FSU), with a storage capacity of 2.2 million barrels of oil, went into operation in the Persian Gulf, Mehr news agency reported.
Construction of the FSU, which is reportedly the world's biggest offshore oil storage terminal, was carried out at a cost of more than $300 million.
The unit, called Khalij-e-Fars (Persian Gulf) FSU, was installed and went into operation in the oil-rich Bahregan region, in Bushehr Province. It will reduce production, transportation, and exports costs, and could be of benefit at a time when oil prices have plummeted almost 60 percent since June.
It is commissioned to store and export oil from a number of oilfields in the Persian Gulf. Loading oil from Soroush and Norouz oilfield has commenced, and currently 70,000 barrels of oil is being stored at the unit.
