Structural, energy and environmental aspects in Iranian oil refineries

Petroleum refineries extract and upgrade the valuable components of crude oil to produce a variety of marketable petroleum products. However Iranian refineries are old and their efficiency and structure do not satisfy demand of the country in which their production is dominated by production of fuel oil at over 30 percent in 2005. From the consumption point, demand of fuel oil and kerosene has been decreased while demand of motor gasoline has been increased. Thus, the refinery patterns shouldmake equilibrium in production and consumption levels. Installing catalytic cracker and RFCC units and more high technologies such as isomerisation and catalytic units in refineries, increasing capacity of the refining industry, and conducting energy management activities are the main challenges of industry in Iran that should be considered to reduce the refining bottleneck affects in near future as proposed in the this analytical study.