Iranian expatriates can invest in development of oil refining and distribution industries at the national level.
Mr Alireza Zeighami deputy oil minister of Iran that Pars condensate refinery of Shiraz, Fars province is one of the most important candidates for building the country's first national refinery.
The official said that USD 47.5 billion has been allocated to the development of various sectors of Iran's oil refining and distribution industry, including construction of refineries, oil and products transfer pipelines, oil storage facilities and new oil tanks.
Total length of oil transfer pipelines should increase from 3,700 kilometers to 5,100 kilometers by the end of the Fifth Five Year Economic Development Plan and to 6,500 kilometers by the end of the 20 Year Perspective Plan.
Mr Zeighami said that about USD 25 billion should be invested in developing new oil refining capacity with the priority given to Pars condensate refinery in Shiraz, Persian Gulf Star refinery, Anahita refinery in Kermanshah province, Shahriyar refinery in Tabriz, East Azarbaijan province and Hormoz refinery in Bandar Abbas, Hormuzgan province.
Pointing to Iran's plan to invest about USD 7 billion in developing oil refineries of Isfahan, Isfahan province and Abadan, Khuzestan province, the official said that Iranian expatriate can invest as much as they can in various projects related to Iran's oil refining and distribution industries.
Mr Zeighami said that USD 2 billion should be invested in developing storage capacity for oil products in Iran by 2015 and about USD 3 billion should be invested in building necessary pipelines. About 70% of the process of building oil refineries has been indigenized by Iranian contractors and manufacturers and the figure can be increased up to 90% by the end of the Fifth Five Year Economic Development Plan.
Iran's total in place oil reserves have been estimated at more than 560 billion barrels with about 140 billion barrels of extractable oil. In addition, heavy and extra heavy varieties of crude oil account for roughly 70 billion to 100 billion barrels of the total reserves.
Iran holds the world's third largest proven of oil reserves and the second largest natural gas reserves. It shares oil and gas fields with most of its neighbors, including Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. The country is OPEC's second largest oil producer and the fourth crude oil exporter. In recent years, Iran has gradually been moving towards becoming a major exporter of refined oil and petrochemical products with significant success.
Source - Iran Daily
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