Oil and Derivatives Supply Infrastructure Expanding

The 26-inch 292-km Arak-Qom-Tehran pipeline plus the 14-inch 220-km Tabriz-Urmia are now operational, expanding supply capacity by 360,000 barrels per day, IRNA reported.

Referring to the first pipeline that extends from Shahzand refinery in Arak in Markazi Province to Tehran refinery in Rey County (south Tehran), the news agency said the project cost $13 million.

The second, costing $20 million, stretches from Tabriz refinery in East Azarbaijan to Urmia in West Azarbaijan, was completed in six years. 

Another pipeline (Nain-Kashan-Rey) is under construction. The 20-inch pipeline, scheduled to come on line by the end of the current fiscal year that started in March, will expand the supply network by another 400 km.

Nain-Kashan-Rey pipeline is a macro plan launched in 2015 and is estimated to cost $54 million.

The 20-inch pipeline, which already extends from Bandar Abbas to Nain County in Isfahan Province, will supply refined oil products, especially Euro-4 gasoline from the Persian Gulf Star Refinery (in the southern province of Hormozgan) to Tehran and other cities in the central and northern regions.

It is designed to carry 50 million liters (equivalent to 360,000 barrels) of petroleum products per day. Without the pipeline, thousands of tanker trucks are needed to carry the move petroleum products.

In related news, IRNA quoted Qasem Arabyar Mohammadi, managing director of Iranian Oil Pipeline and Telecommunication Company, as saying that the firm supplied close to 100 billion liters of crude and petroleum products nationwide in 2019.

“Oil and derivative supplies to different regions last year included gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and kerosene.” 

IOPTC is in charge of transporting crude oil and byproducts. It is a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company. 

In general, oil is propelled through the use of centrifugal pumps, located at the originating station of the line and then at 30 to 160 kilometer intervals along the line. Transport speed depends upon the diameter of the pipe, the pressure under which the oil is being transported, the topography of the terrain and viscosity of the oil.

The pipeline which has been extended by more than 7,000 km over four decades now stretches over 14,500 kilometers.

The grid moved 22 billion liters of crude and petroleum products in 1979. Today the figure is 120 billion liters per annum. 

The company is also responsible for selling diesel to power plants in Tehran, Alborz and Gilan provinces mostly in winter when they face gas shortages that is the main feedstock.

With gas production rising in South Pars Gas Field off the Persian Gulf and increased supplies to industries and power plants (except in winter), the volume of diesel and mazut supply has gradually declined in the last three years.