The Persian Gulf Star Refinery in Hormozgan Province has produced $5.4 billion worth of commodities such as gasoline, diesel and liquefied gas since the launch of its first phase in April 2017, reducing dependence on imports that deplete the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
“The refinery currently produces 24 million liters of Euro-5 gasoline and 6 million liters of other products per day, which are worth a total of $15 million if each liter of the products is priced at 50 cents,” Alireza Sadeqabadi, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company, told IRNA on Tuesday.
Sadeqabadi added that PGSR’s output in the roughly 14 months reached 3.7 billion liters of gasoline, 1.7 billion liters of diesel, 500 million liters of liquefied gas and 9 billion liters of other commodities.
The complex is a major condensate processing facility by the Persian Gulf and it is aimed at helping the country to achieve self-sufficiency in gasoline production.
According to Sadeqabadi, Iran's gasoline production will reach 105 million liters per day by the Iranian yearend (March 20, 2019) upon the completion of its biggest refinery.
The country currently produces over 70 million liters of gasoline per day.
“The refinery’s total production is worth $5.4 billion, which prevented the exit of the same amount of foreign currency [from the country],” he said.
Referring to the guaranteed production from the giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf as a major indirect effect of the refinery's operation, Sadeqabadi, who is also a deputy oil minister, said this means utilizing more gas instead of liquefied fuels, producing ethane to be used as petrochemical feedstock and lower emission of pollutants.
PGSR is being developed in three phases with a combined processing capacity of 360,000 barrels per day of condensate, a type of ultra light crude extracted from South Pars. The refinery is designed to produce 36 million liters per day of gasoline, or 12 ml/d in each phase.
The first phase of the refinery, which was inaugurated by President Hassan Rouhani more than a decade after construction began in the city of Bandar Abbas, is in full swing and its Euro-4 and -5 gasoline is being distributed in mega cities. "The second phase partially became operational by the end of the last fiscal [March 20, 2018] and is planned for official inauguration by President Hassan Rouhani soon," Sadeqabadi said earlier.
"The third phase will go on stream by the end of the [Iranian] year," he added.
