Speaking to Shana, deputy minister of petroleum, Alireza Zeighami made the remarks adding indigenizing oil refineries’ expertise, raising the share of Iranian made equipment in building oil refineries, manufacturing bulk of the needed items at home, self-sufficiency in engineering and implementation of the refining projects are the samples showing Iranian experts and engineers’ progresses in the sector.   

Referring to 40 thousand billion rials investment in development plan of Imam Khomeini (Shazand) oil refinery, Zeighami noted that for the first time an Iranian consortium was fully responsible for implementation of the mega project and managed to complete it successfully.

By implementation of Imam Khomeini oil refinery’s development plan, refining capacity of the facility will edge up from 170 thousand barrels per day to 250 thousand barrels per day amid cutting production of fuel oil production from 38 to 15 thousand barrels per day.

Upgrading and improving the quality of Imam Khomeini oil refinery’s products is the biggest ongoing project of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) that upon completion will turn the refinery to the largest producer of gasoline in the country.

‘During the last couple of years and concurrent with intensifying sanctions, using domestic manufacturers capabilities was accelerated and many domestically made items replaced their foreign made ones’, Zeighani told Shana.

Stressing on maximum deployment of domestic potentials in building oil refineries, the official said that Iranian expertise would be the basis of implementation of development plans at Abadan, Isfahan, Bandar Abbas and Persian Gulf’s Star oil refineries.

Noting that Iranian oil refineries are built based on international standards, Zeighami said:  Since standards related to building and updating of oil refineries being finalized just after confirmation by foreign companies, in order to bypassing the enemies sanctions, achieving self sufficiency in issuance and confirmation of standards is absolutely necessity.

According to Zeighami successful implementation of Imam Khomeini oil refinery was the result of cooperation between domestic experts of Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) on the one hand and Imam Khomeini oil refinery on the other hand.

Earlier Iranian minister of petroleum had emphasized on using domestic know-how for building new oil refineries.  National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Company (NIOEC) declared recently that the country had the expertise to manufacture 70 percent of equipment needed in oil refining projects.