The government aims to ensure the purchase of high quality products from oil refineries under the terms of a recent approval, a senior oil industry official said Wednesday.
Managing director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), Abbas Kazemi, made the remarks referring to a five-year deadline set by the cabinet for refineries to implement upgrading plans aimed at improving the quality of their oil products, Shana news agency reported.
"Under the new approval, oil refineries are tasked with allocating 30 percent of their annual profits to implementation of upgrading plans within a five-year period and NIORDC should confirm their initiatives," Kazemi said.
If oil refineries abide by the new directive in favor of improving the quality of their products, then their products will be bought under the new formula provided that NIORDC confirms their plans, he noted.
Recently, NIORDC announced that complying with Eruo-5 standards is its top production priority for the next five years.
Director of integrated planning at NIORDC, Shahabodin Methaji, told Shana that Iranian oil refineries that have not implemented an upgrading plan so far should take immediate measures to improve the quality of their products.
He noted that upgrading the quality improvement measures should be taken along with a comprehensive plan for reducing air pollution in the cities, which have been mainly caused by the work of refineries built in their vicinity.
Tehran, Tabriz, Esfahan, Shiraz and Abadan oil refineries should complete their upgrading plans during the five-year period. Development projects of Abadan and Esfahan refineries are currently underway with the aim of reducing fuel oil production.
