TEHRAN (NIORDC) - The Deputy Minister of Petroleum for Refining Affairs said the capacity of domestic banks would be tapped for financing refining projects in the country.

Emphasizing that optimization of energy and fuel consumption is one of the main priorities in the refining industry, Jalil Salari said: "The fate of the licensing rounds for financing several refining projects by local banks would be determined within the coming few days."

Addressing the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding for financing the construction of the Mehraran-Fasa-Shiraz (Pars) pipeline between NIORDC and Tejarat Bank, and was attended by the Ministers of Petroleum and Economy on Sunday, March 6, Salari added: "We will fulfill our commitment to reduce fuel oil and improve the quality of products. Also, in parallel, preliminary studies for construction of two new refineries in the country are underway."

Noting that no power outages in the country were seen during the current calendar year, which began on March 21, he said: "18.5 billion liters of liquid fuel and 70 billion cubic meters of gas and a total of 88.5 billion liters of petroleum products have been fed to the country"s power plants, and annually about 65 billion liters of fuel are used in the transportation and industrial sectors of the country."

Referring to the 8% annual growth in the country"s electricity consumption, the Deputy Minister of Petroleum for Refining and Distribution of Petroleum Products said: "It seems that Iran should build a power plant every 10 years to compensate for this amount of consumption growth, so considering the 38.5% efficiency of power plants in the country, one of our main concerns is optimization of fuel consumption in the country."

Emphasizing that, "we do not consider the development of the country"s refining industry to be dependent on the Vienna nuclear talks, Salari said: "In recent months, we have tried to finance the country"s vital projects from domestic financial sources and financial consortia and the capacity of banks."

The NIORDC CEO stated: "We did not suspend implementation of projects due to the government budget and their conditions and therefore relied on the capacity of banks."

Referring to the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for financing the construction of Mehraran-Fasa-Shiraz (Pars) pipeline, he noted: "About 11-12 million liters of daily fuel consumption in the region, of which 5 million liters are from Shiraz refinery and 8 million liters from Isfahan, Bandar Abbas and Abadan refineries. With signing this contract and with the implementation of this project, 80 million liters will be added to the storage capacity of the country"s petroleum products."