TEHRAN – Central Bank of Iran (CBI) is going to pay 200 trillion rials (over $4.7 billion) of facilities for construction of a series of refineries in Siraf Port in southern Iran, Shana reported, quoting the Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh as saying.

Speaking in the opening ceremony of the country’s first innovation event in the oil industry called “Petroleum Take-Off” on Monday, Zanganeh said the comprehensive Siraf refineries project (which includes six refineries each with a daily refining capacity of 60,000 barrels of gas condensate) is being implemented, and according to the agreements, the central bank will finance the project.

Emphasizing the importance of the oil ministry’s plans for the construction of new refineries across the country, Zanganeh said Persian Gulf Star Refinery, as well as Tabriz, Isfahan, Bandar Abbas, and Abadan refineries, are clear examples of the oil ministry’s efforts in this regard.

“However, we should not look for the solution for the country’s fuel problems in refineries, the solution lays in the new car-making technologies,” he said.

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) should be supported as a national fuel, although it does not reduce the thermal residues and consumption, it reduces fuel prices which is important to our national economy, Zanganeh added.

The Siraf refineries complex is being constructed at the Siraf region of Bushehr province on the coast of the Persian Gulf, between the 13th and 19th phases of the South Pars gas field over an area of approximately 300 hectares.

The project was first introduced in 2014 when the oil ministry announced plans for the development of a complex known as “Siraf Refining Park” to be located on the Persian Gulf in the Tombak region (50 km West of Assaluyeh). 

The refineries’ gas condensate feed is going to be supplied from the South Pars field.

EF/MA