In line with efforts to boost the country's oil refining output, Abadan crude processing facility's gasoline production capacity has reached 12 million liters per day, the refinery’s managing director said.
"The refinery's gasoline output level stood at less than 10 ml/d in 2016, yet it has recently increased to 12 ml/d," Esfandiar Daemolzekr was also quoted as saying by Shana, the National Iranian Oil Company's news agency.
"Two refining units, which had been disused for four years, were totally overhauled to accomplish the goal. Plans have been devised to start the production of Euro-4 gasoline by the end of the current fiscal year [ending March 20]."
The official noted that the units had stopped working due to technical problems in sulfuric acid recovery units, but they were renovated and went on stream in 2017.
"The aging refinery is being overhauled in four phases and plans are in place to start the production of Euro-4 gasoline by March 2019," he said.
Daemolzekr further said the total finance required for the second phase of upgrading Abadan Refinery is $3 billion, which will be provided by China’s Sinopec Engineering Company and Iran’s Oil Design and Construction Company.
In the first stage, Iran's oldest refinery attracted $1.05 billion in finance from Sinopec in a deal signed in December to develop the phase, Nikkei reported.
Expressing satisfaction with the project's progress, Daemolzekr noted that while the venture will take four years to complete, some units, such as distillation, came on stream much earlier. According to Hamid Sharif Razi, the managing director of National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Company, the second development phase of the refinery, being implemented by a consortium of Iranian and Chinese companies, is aimed at building a new refinery with a processing capacity of 210,000 barrels per day in the Abadan refinery.
