Shana – Iran has exported an average of 450,000 barrels/d of petroleum products in the first 10 months of the current calendar year which began on March 20 2016, a senior energy official said.

Abbas Kazemi, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Products Refining and Distribution Company (NIOPRDC), said on Thursday that the country has set a record by exporting of 600,000 b of products during the period.

Iran began exporting petroleum products for the first time this year after more than a century of pumping crude oil from its reserves.

He said the items were exported from Mahshahr, Bandar Abbas, Asalouyeh and Lavar ports, adding the export volumes are planned to be sustained at 0.6mbd in the coming years.

"Since implementation of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, the country's refineries have undergone major developments and new business transactions began with Germans and many industrial equipment were imported to the country for developing Persian Gulf and Bandar Abbas refineries," he said.

It was after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) implementation that the project to sustain the quality of Abadan Refinery's output with an investment of $2.8b was carried out in Iran.

Once operational, the project will allow the refinery to produce Euro-5 products and its fuel oil output diminishes from 40% of the facility's output to 25%.
Furthermore, since the JCPOA implementation back in January 2016, many investors from China, Japan and South Korea arrived to Iran to renew the country's refineries.