Iran’s refining capacity up by 24%, second largest in OPEC: Report
Iran’s capacity for refining crude and other products has increased by nearly a fourth in four years to 2020 to become the second largest in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
In a report published on Sunday, Iranian Oil Ministry’s news service Shana cited figures from OPEC’s annual bulletin showing that Iran’s refining capacity had increased by 23.58 percent compared to 2016 to reach a total of 2.201 million barrels per day (bpd).
The report said the new capacity puts Iran behind Saudi Arabia, the leading OPEC member by refining capacity at 2.896 million bpd, down from 2.934 million bpd recorded in 2015.
Iran has replaced Venezuela in the OPEC ranking, said the report, adding that the South American country’s capacity remained stable between 2015 and 2019 at 1.891 million bpd.
The figures are a fresh sign that a series of sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran’s exports of crude have hardly impacted the country’s actual production.
The bans, enacted in November 2018 and toughened in May 2019, have caused a boom in the downstream section of the Iranian oil and gas industry with refineries currently pumping record amounts of fuels and other products.
Figures provided by Shana showed that Iraq, the second largest oil producer in OPEC, had seen its relatively low refining capacity reduced by over 15 percent compared to 2015 to 762,000 bpd in 2019 while the United Arab Emirates’ throughput remained flat at 1.124 million bpd from 2015 to 2019.
Total refining capacity of OPEC countries, a bloc of 15 oil-producing nations, had increased by 136,000 bpd to 11.218 million bpd in 2019, said the report.
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