Mousavi told a news conference at Tehran Oil Show that four storage facilities are under construction in Kharg Island for that purpose. The construction of these facilities, whose total capacity stands at one million barrels, has progressed 39 percent.
“Around Genaveh also, facilities with capacity of 10 million barrels are envisioned. They have already been designed and a private entity is to handle its construction,” he said.
“National Iranian Offshore Oil Company (NIOOC) and National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC) are envisioning the construction of new facilities for the same purpose,” said Mousavi.
The official said IOTC can handle the swap of 150,000 barrels of oil. “Our swap operations halted for a short period of time and now we have signed a new swap deal.”
He said nearly 20,000 barrels are swapped by this company every day.
IOTC exported 900 million barrels of oil last calendar year to March, he said, adding the company exported record 170 million barrels of gas condensates the same year.
Mousavi said there was no oil surplus in the reservoirs. Crude exports go ahead on schedule, he added.
Mousavi said 16 million barrels of crude are held in the company’s reservoirs to be exported.
He said underground crude storage facilities were under construction as part of the country’s “passive defense projects” to add to Iran’s bargaining power in the region.
The underground facilities, planned to be constructed in the Persian Gulf banks, are estimated to cost 20 billion rials.
“In the first stage, ten million underground reservoirs are planned. The cost for holding each barrel costs 22 dollars in metallic reservoirs. Underground facilities cost lower,” he said.
“These underground facilities would be constructed deep underground to avoid oil leakage. Such reservoirs are mainly constructed in crude importing countries, but exporters also construct them in order to boost their bargaining power. Saudi Arabia has already constructed such reservoirs,” Mousavi said.