An oil refinery

National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) is part of the Ministry of Petroleum of Iran. NIORDC was established on March 8, 1992 and undertook to perform all operations relating to refining and distribution of oil products.

Although NIORDC was formed in the 1990s, the company has actually inherited 90 years of Iran?s oil industries' experiences in the fields of refining, transfer and distribution of oil products, as well as, engineering and construction of installations of oil industries.

Responsibilities and duties (2009)

• Refining crude oil and producing a variety of oil products.
• Transferring crude oil from production bases and ?Khazar Terminal? to the refineries and also transferring oil products from refineries and import bases to distribution procurement depots and distribution centres.
• Performing all refining projects and schemes, transfer and storing.
• Production, transfer and distribution of 250 million litres of oil products per day.
• Daily export of around 60 million litres of oil products abroad via oil terminals.
• Providing different sectors ? industry, agriculture and power plants ? with fuel and feed regularly e.g. petrochemical complexes.
• Providing consuming fuel to residential sector, business sector in urban and the peasantry communities all over the country.
• Providing more than 7 million vehicles ? heavy and light ? in the transportation sector with their required daily fuel.

Installations and capabilities

According to Oil and Gas Journal, Iran has a combined capacity of . Major refineries include: Abadan (400,000-bbl/d capacity); Isfahan (265,000 bbl/d); Bandar Abbas (232,000 bbl/d); Tehran (225,000 bbl/d); Arak (150,000 bbl/d); and Tabriz (112,000 bbl/d). Gasoline demand is forecast to be growing at around 11.4 percent per year. Other crude oil refineries are in Kermanshah, Shiraz and Lavan Island.^[1]

Other facilities:

• Fourteen thousand kilometers of crude oil and oil product transfer pipelines.
• 150 pumping stations.
• Oil industry telecommunication network.
• Operational zones for pipelines and telecommunication.
• 35 operational zones for NIOPDC.
• 220 operational areas for NIOPDC.
• Storage tank installations with 10 milliard litre capacity (2009).^[2]

Fuel imports

In 2008, Iran imported nearly 40% of its gasoline needs because of lack of refining capacity and contraband.^[3] Iran purchased nearly all of this imported gasoline from just five companies, four of them European: the Swiss firms Vitol (60%) and Glencore; the Swiss/Dutch firm Trafigura; the French firm Total; British Petroleum; and one Indian company: Reliance Industries.^[4][5] The Financial Times said Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura had since stopped supplying petrol to Iran.^[6]

New facilities

In 2007, Iranian Oil Minister Vaziri-Hamaneh noted that the country's oil refining industry needs a $15 billion investment for its development. He also noted that construction of Hormuz refinery in Bandar Abbas city and Abadan city in Khuzestan, each with a daily capacity of 300,000 and , respectively and a gas condensate plant in Bandar Abbas with a capacity of are among Iran's new projects. ^[7]

Going forward, FACTS reports that Iran will complete construction of these three condensate splitters by 2009 (360,000 barrels per day in total). The facilities will produce an estimated of gasoline. Along with other projects to extend capacity at Arak, Abadan and Isfahan refineries, it is possible that Iran will cease being a gasoline importer by 2010 and will become a net exporter by 2013.^[8]

In December 2008, Iran announced its plans to construct seven oil refineries at a cost of $27 billion by 2013. The production capacity of the country in gasoline and gas-oil will increase by 1.9 and 1.8 million liters per day respectively.^[9]

Khuzestan refinery, The Persian Gulf Star refinery, Shahriar refinery, Anahita refinery, Hormoz refinery, Caspian refinery and Pars refinery are the seven planned refineries, the Mehr news agency reported. When these refineries are complete, the nation's refining capacity of crude oil and gas condensates will be raised by 1,560,000 barrels while 110 million liters will be added to its gasoline production.^[10]

Policy

• Providing desirable fuel supplying services and supplying feed of industries and factories all over the country in due time.
• Reducing consumption rate through employing energy consumption management and raising export rate to make foreign currency.
• Reducing waste materials through improving efficiency in refining and distribution system.
• Reducing environment pollution to reach stable development.
• Raising human force productivity and promoting level of training.
• Increasing output of refinery facilities and transfer are distribution of oil products.
• Reducing cost of production, transfer and distribution of oil products.

Subsidiary companies

The NIORDC subsidiaries are as follows:

• National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Co.
• Management of Construction & Development of "CNG" Stations Co.
• National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Co.
• Oil Pipeline and Telecommunication Co.
• Oil Refining Co.

See also

• Abadan Refinery
• List of oil refineries
• 2007 Gas Rationing Plan in Iran
• Ministry of Petroleum of Iran
• National Iranian Oil Company
• Transport in Iran
• Economy of Iran
• Iranian automobile industry

References

External links

• Official NIORDC Website
• Iran's Refinery Expansion Projects
• Iran: Construction of 7 refineries moving ahead

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