Three gasoline producing units are under construction in Abadan Refinery, IRNA quoted a senior oil official as saying.
Gasoline production will improve once operation from the new units start, Abbas Kazemi, deputy oil minister and managing director of the National Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) said.
Older units will be decommissioned, Kazemi said, noting that the replacement of older units will be carried out to help prevent environmental degradation.
The GP2U unit in Abadan Refinery is in the implementation stage, and will go on stream in the next two months. Euro 4 gasoline will be distributed in Abadan and Ahvaz following operation of the unit. The refinery’s gasoline production will increase from 10 million liters per day to 12.5 ml/d.
Abadan Refinery is being developed to increase its Euro-4 and Euro-5 gasoil and gasoline output. With the development of the refinery, Iran will see its gasoline production rise by 6.2 ml/d, gasoil by 15.5 ml/d, fuel oil by 7.1 ml/d, kerosene by 3.9 ml/d, and liquefied gas by 1.5 ml/d. China is financing the project, which is estimated at 2.6 million euros, and is expected to come on stream in four years.
The country was set to become self-reliant in gasoline production and start exports by the summer, but the deadline was not met due to construction delays in several refineries. An average of 70 ml/d of gasoline and 18 million cubic meters per day of CNG has been distributed over the past nine months.
The Abadan Refinery, one of the biggest in the world with a capacity of 400,000 barrels a day, is located in Abadan near the Persian Gulf. It was founded in 1909 by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later BP).
It operates as a subsidiary of NIORDC, and produces and processes different oil byproducts including LPG, naphtha petrochemical feed, regular gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, gas oil, light fuel oil, lub oil, bitumen, and sulphur.
