To help boost diesel production in compliance with Euro-5 emission standards at the Isfahan Oil Refining Company in central Isfahan Province, a diesel treatment unit was launched on Sunday, managing director of the firm said.
“Costing $600 million, the project is expected to reduce sulfur content in diesel from 10,000 parts per million to less than 10 ppm,” Morteza Ebrahimi was also quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry news portal.
The company now produces 4 million liters of Euro-5 diesel a day and output will rise fivefold, he added.
IORC launched a sulfur granulation unit with a daily capacity of 300 tons in 2020. The move was also in line with policies to reduce environmental pollution and upgrade the quality of refined products.
“Both plans are aimed at minimizing the environmental impact of sulfur in the air and curbing emissions,” the company’s managing director said.
Sulfur is used mainly to produce sulfuric acid, an important chemical widely used in the fertilizer, rubber, steel manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries.
Established in 1979, the refinery produces 25% of the country’s petroleum products, including 16 million liters of Euro-4 diesel, 8 million liters of Euro-4 and 12 million liters of Euro-5 gasoline per day.
The company has succeeded in removing aromatic compounds, sulfur and benzene from AW-406 solvent and converting it to ++AW-406 solvent.
Isfahan’s refinery is the main supplier of feedstock to Sepahan Oil Company, Isfahan Petrochemical Plant, Arak Petrochemical Plant, Jey Oil Refining Company and Iran Chemical Industries Company.
Crude oil needed by the refinery comes from Maroun Oilfield in Khuzestan Province via a 430-km pipeline.
As per its environmental commitments, the company is making efforts to reduce the amount of sulfur in mazut and gradually reduce the production of this eco-unfriendly fuel by converting it into other products.
Mazut is among highly polluting products. It is a heavy, low quality fuel oil used in power plants and factories. The main type of bunker oil for ships is heavy mazut, derived as a residue from crude oil distillation.
Wastewater Treatment
According to Ebrahimi, the company's wastewater treatment unit has been launched to help meet the refinery’s water requirements.
"The plant, with a capacity of 750 cubic meters per hour, cost $8 million and was built in two years."
He said the refinery buys wastewater from towns like Shahin-Shahr in the vicinity of the company.
“The municipal wastewater is piped to the refinery and reused after treatment in the new plant,” he said.
Ebrahimi had earlier warned that the refinery would have to either reduce or stop production, if the worsening water crisis at the refinery was not resolved. The huge refinery consumes 1,000 cubic meters of water per hour, of which 700 cm are recycled and reused.
"We have been grappling with water scarcity for a long time," he said, adding that the company processes 375,000 barrels of crude a day but cannot be sustained for long unless the refining units have sufficient access to water.
Located in the arid regions of Iran with minimal precipitation, Isfahan Province has been struggling with drought for seven years.
According to Mohsen Mehralizadeh, governor general of the province, water flow into Zayandehroud Dam was 1.2 billion cubic meters in 2017, which has now declined to 400 million cubic meters.
"Of the total flow, 320 mcm are used for drinking purposes and the rest for industries," he said, noting that due to the dramatic decline in precipitation, industries have to reduce water consumption by at least 25%.
Tapping into non-conventional resources (drainage water, water containing toxic elements, sediments and treated or untreated wastewater effluent) has become a compulsion to help reduce the gap between water supply and demand.
Close to 4.3 billion cubic meters of effluent are produced in the country annually, of which less than 1 bcm are treated in 232 treatment plants.
It is reported that 3.3 bcm of sewage go to waste (either channeled into rivers or penetrates into the ground) because of the lack of wastewater infrastructure.
