The largest oil storage facility in western Iran with a capacity of 119 million liters of petroleum products is expected to go on stream by March 2016, director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company in Urmia in West Azarbaijan Province said.
Noting that the project is under construction in a 50-hectare land, Asghar Tofiqi added that 11 units have been planned to store a wide range of oil products, Shana reported.
These include two units each with a capacity of storing 11.3 million liters of gasoline, two 2.8-million-liter units for premium gasoline and four 11.3-million-liter units for kerosene.
Three other units are being developed to stock more than 32 million liters of diesel.
Tofiqi said the project has made 93% progress and is due to become operational by the end of the current Iranian year (March 2016), provided weather issues do not obstruct the construction process.
Iran is also expanding the number of natural gas storage units to meet the country's rising demand in the cold season.
In September, officials said gas storage volume had doubled in the northeastern Shourijeh underground gas storage facility in Sarakhs in Khorasan Razavi Province.
In addition, Sarajeh, the first natural gas storage facility in Iran and the Middle East, was officially inaugurated last January near Qom, 124 kilometers south of Tehran. It has the capacity to store 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas in its first phase and 3.3 billion cubic meters in the second.
