Iran’s largest refinery restoring output to pre-war years
Iran is to launch a new expansion phase in its flagship refinery in Abadan to restore output in the facility to levels seen before the Iran-Iraq war.
President Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi is planned to inaugurate an expansion project in Abadan Refinery on Friday, according to a report by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) which said that the project will increase production in the refinery by 210,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The government has invested some $1.2 billion on the massive expansion project which will create more than 7,000 new jobs, mostly for people in Khuzestan, the oil-rich province in southwestern Iran where Abadan is located.
Established since 1912, Abadan Refinery is the oldest oil refinery in the region. It was once the largest refinery in the world with an annual capacity for processing 25 million metric tons (mt) of crude oil.
The refinery’s capacity was 635,000 bpd (32 million mt per year) before the Iran-Iraq war when the facility was largely destroyed.
The capacity of the refinery will reach more than 630,000 bpd with the launch of the expansion project on Friday, according to the contractor leading the project.
Ahmad Farzaneh said the atmospheric distillation unit due to open in Abadan Refinery will be the largest distillation plant in the region.
SS
