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Three key refinery projects underway to raise petrol output: Deputy minister
The Oil Ministry is advancing three major projects to boost daily gasoline output by 20 million liters, Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad-Sadegh Azimifar told ILNA on Tuesday.
“For increasing gasoline production, three main priority plans are on the table, including the Mehr Persian Gulf refinery, Phase 2 of the Abadan refinery and the Isfahan RFCC refinery project,” said Azimifar, who also heads the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co.
He added that completing the three projects by 2029 could help meet the targets set in Iran’s Seventh Development Plan (SDP) for expanding production.
Iran’s ten main refineries, with a total processing capacity of 2.4 million liters of crude per day, currently churn out 107 million liters of gasoline daily, 27 million liters short of demand.
The growing shortfall has forced the government to spend billions of dollars annually on gasoline imports since 2021, a bill that has reached $6bn so far this year, according to budget chief Hamid Pourmohammadi.
Azimifar said higher output alone could not bridge the supply gap or bring imports down to zero.
“Halting imports depends on controlling consumption. If effective measures are taken to manage gasoline usage, imports might be cut to zero,” he pointed out.
The Mehr Persian Gulf refinery in the port city of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran is scheduled to come onstream in March 2027 with a daily output of 13 million liters of gasoline.
At the Phase 2 expansion of the Abadan refinery in southwestern Khuzestan Province, output is expected to surge from 10 million liters to 14 million liters per day.
The RFCC (Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracking) project at the Isfahan refinery in central Iran, aims to convert heavy residues such as fuel oil into higher-value products like gasoline.
The project is expected to produce 8 million liters per day of Euro-5 gasoline and push up the refinery’s total output to 22 million liters.
Together, the three projects will add 25 million liters per day to Iran’s gasoline production capacity, bringing total output to 132 million liters per day while the Oil Ministry is required under the SDP to lift output to 129 million liters per day.
But the planned increase is unlikely to keep pace with consumption, even if achieved by 2029. Officials estimate gasoline use grows at least 5% annually, which would push daily demand to 163 million liters in four years, 31 million liters above the expected capacity of domestic refineries in 2029.