TEHRAN – Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council has obliged Oil Ministry to take the necessary measures for increasing the capacity of the country’s petro-refineries to at least three million barrels per day (bpd) in the Seventh Five-Year National Development Plan (2021-2026).

The decision was made in an extraordinary meeting of the council on Tuesday which was held under the chairmanship of Sadegh Amoli-Larijani and with the presence of the secretary and the majority of the members of the council, Shana reported.

In this meeting, the assembly continued to discuss and review the general policies of the Seventh Five-Year National Development Plan.

The assembly was also attended by Oil Minister Javad Oji and his deputies, the head and deputy head of the Planning and Budget Organization (PBO), the head of the Parliament’s Economic Committee, the head of the Research Center of the Parliament, and the head of Department of Environment.

The decision came as the attendees of the gathering emphasized that the sales of crude oil and gas should be reduced and the crude oil and gas should be refined to produce products with more added value.

Iran has been following new strategies to build more petro-refineries across the country and even to turn the country’s existing refineries into petro-refineries, since due to the country's benefit from oil and gas resources, the development of petro-refineries is much easier and relatively cheaper in Iran than other countries in the world, and the country can play a role in regulating the price of petrochemical products in the world due to its proximity to energy sources and its capacity for the development of petro-refineries.

Earlier this week, major Iranian banks signed memorandums of understanding (MOU) with domestic companies to provide $17.8 billion for the construction of a large-scale refinery and a petro-refinery in southern Iran.

The MOUs for the funding of Morvarid Makran Refinery and Shahid Ghasem Soleimani Petro-refinery, each with a total processing capacity of 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), were signed by the representatives of the mentioned entities on Monday, in a ceremony attended by Oji and President Ebrahim Raisi.

EF/MA