Mr Heydar Shamsi an official of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company announced that Kerman Oil Depot will be inaugurated within 1 month. He put the capacity of the depot at 345 million liters of gasoline and gasoil.

The Kerman oil depot has been established at cost of IRR 650 billion and was constructed in an area of 60 hectares near Kerman Rafsanjan highway, 30 kilometers off Kerman city. Four new oil depots are to become operational by the end of current Iranian year.

Kerman oil depot, Orumieh oil depot, Mahshahr oil depot, Malayer oil depot and a product storage system for Gorgan oil depot will be inaugurated by year end. Currently, the country has capacity to store 11.6 billion liters of oil products. It is predicted that capacity of storing liquid fuel will increase to 12.8 billion liters.

In August, Mr Jalil Salari MD of NIODC said that 4 new oil depots will be inaugurated across the country in near future. The depots are planned to become operational in Kerman, Kerman province, Mahshahr in Khuzestan province, Malayer in Hamedan province and Birjand in South Khorasan province.

He said that the country's oil storage capacity will increase by 1 billion liters in the current year adding the total reserve of gasoline, diesel, power plant fuel, kerosene and furnace oil will increase significantly as well. New plans have been drawn up to help increase the private sector's contribution to development and construction of oil depots. The total volume of the country's liquid fuel reserves presently stand at 11.2 billion liters and the figure is expected to increase by 1.1 billon liters by yearend.

Last year, Iran's capacity to store liquid fuel grew by one billion liters following constructing and inaugurating 16 new storage facilities. The capacity is to exceed 14.5 billion liters with implementation of new projects by the end of the Fifth Five Year Economic Development Plan.

Source - Iran Daily

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