Having delivered oil and byproducts for over one-third of a century, Iran’s oil pipelines are now in need of financial resources to undertake renovation.
Noting that the country’s oil transmission pipelines are currently 35 years old, Abbasali Ja’fari-Nasab, managing director of Iranian Oil Pipeline and Telecommunications Company, said on Tuesday that despite their old age, pipelines are in good operational conditions, which has resulted from the implementation of maintenance and repair plans, Mehr News Agency reported.
Ja’fari-Nasab noted that the repair and renovation of some parts of Iranian pipelines are on the company’s agenda for the current Iranian year (started March 20).
“This will include sections of Isfahan’s Maroun Pipeline, if the funds and equipment are supplied,” he added.
According to Ja’fari-Nasab, as in the past two years, finance is to be provided this year through the allocation of 5% of taxes by raising the prices of oil byproducts which, if it were to materialize, will accelerate the process of expanding and renovating oil pipelines.
“Along with the renovation of oil supply network, optimization of energy consumption, enhancement of management and efficiency and reduction of costs are the company’s prioritized plans,” he said. The official stressed that sustainable and safe delivery of crude oil and byproducts, as well as supply of feedstock to seven oil refineries, are the main missions of the company in the current year.
Underscoring the need to implement prompt maintenance and repair plans for equipment, machinery and pipelines, Ja’fari-Nasab said last year, 120 billion liters of liquid fuel, which included 63.5 billion liters of crude and 56.5 billion liters of oil byproducts, were transferred via pipelines. He noted that with the rise in the production capacity of gas and the supply of more gas to industries and power plants in the country, the volume of transferred diesel and mazut has declined.
According to Ali Akbar Shabanpour, managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company, Iran pumped more than 95 billion cubic meters of natural gas from South Pars in the 10 months ending February.
He expected annual gas output from the joint field to reach 130 bcm by the end of the year. During the past three years, Iran’s gas industry has launched Phase 12, South Pars' largest phase in terms of production and scope of operations, in addition to phases 15 and 16.
Phases 17 and 18, with an output of 50 million cubic meters per day, are to be officially inaugurated in the next few months.
