IRAN: Iranian issues permit for temporary gasoline imports

Iran's acting oil minister, Gholam-Hossein Nozari, has issued the permit for importing gasoline temporarily, a senior official said Monday.

The National Iranian Oil Products Refining and Distribution Co (NIOPRDC) managing director, Mohammad-Reza Nematzadeh, added that Nozari, the Oil Ministry's caretaker and National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) managing director, gave the go-ahead as the 2.5 billion dollar budget ran out.

The NIOPRDC chief was quoted by PIN as saying that the NIOC would provide the currency needed for imports of the commodity.

Based on the permit, he added, 14 to 15 million liters of gasoline would be imported per day.

Iran began rationing gasoline from June 22 and the Oil Ministry has allocated each private car 100 liters per month at about 10 cents per liter for regular and 15 cents for premium gasoline. Under the plan, gasoline is only supplied through smart card, an initiative taken by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop lavish fuel consumption by over seven million cars nationwide.

Gasoline rationing would help the government save over three billion dollars until March, Oil Ministry's director for
international affairs said.

Hojatollah Ghanimifard added that gasoline consumption had currently reached 15 million liters per day from 35-36 million liters per day before the rationing plan came into effect in June.

The Islamic Republic spent about seven billion dollars annually on gasoline imports, he said, adding the figure would be decreased to four billion dollars in the near future.

Via: Islamic Republic News Agency
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MIDDLE EAST: First SP refinery overhauled, to go on stream soon

South Pars Technical Repair and Maintenance Company (TMC) managing director, Mohammad-Kazem Bahmani, said the first refinery of South Pars (SP) field has been overhauled and would become operational in the near future.

The refinery of the first phase of SP field has undergone a 14 day overhaul and is ready for operation at full capacity, PIN quoted Bahmani as saying.

He added the offshore platform and refinery of the first phase were overhauled by the TMC engineers in Assalouyeh, southern province of Bushehr.

"The pipeline of the first phase faces no problem for transferring gas from the offshore platform to the refinery," said the official, adding all safety valves were transferred from the offshore platform and repaired.

The refinery of SP Phase one was put into operation in late October 2004, producing 25 million cubic meters of natural gas, 40,000 barrels of gas condensates, and 200 tons of sulfur per day.

Via: Islamic Republic News Agency
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ASIA: Petroleum exports to touch $497 Bn by 2012

Export of petroleum products from India is likely to reach $497.01 billion within the next five years, said a study by industry body Assocham. It said exports of petroleum products are growing at a faster rate than imports.

Petroleum products exported by India have been growing at an astonishing rate of 73 percent for the past three years, according to "Petroleum Trade", a study done by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).

"Petroleum exports were valued at $0.03 billion in 1999-2000, which increased to $18.53 billion in fiscal 2006-07, growing at a compound annual rate of 96.5 percent. Imports on the other hand, increased from $12.6 billion in 1999-2000 to $57 billion in 2006-07," Venugopal Dhoot, president, Assocham said in a statement.

"Even as energy requirements of Indian economy are rapidly increasing, capacity expansion of public- and private-sector refineries would help maintain the growth momentum of exports of petroleum products," he added.

The study also indicated that the growth rate of petroleum imports had been declining over the past two years. It grew by 29.7 percent in 2006-07 compared with a growth of 47 percent the previous year.

The growth in imports, Assocham said, had been partly on account of the appreciating rupee, which increased by about 10 percent since March this year. The production of petroleum products increased by 50 percent during the same period from 79,411,000 tonnes to 119,750,000 tonnes, Assocham said.

Export of petroleum, oil and lubricants from Asia rose to $6.8 billion in 2006-07 from $4.3 billion in 2005-06. Within Asia, countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Japan are major oil products importing countries from India with exports worth $0.69 billion, $0.55 billion, $0.42 million, respectively, in fiscal 2006-07.

Via: SiliconIndia
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