Technological Renewal of Iran's Oil Refining Industry, Providing Technological Strategies for Competitiveness

Abstract

Iran's oil refineries have faced severe competitiveness challenges, and technical renewal is their main option. To this end, the first step is to determine the requirements of technology. While gasoline production in Iran will soon double the consumption, the main focus of refining industry reforms has been on increasing gasoline production. The paper offers solutions to regenerate Iran's refining industry in light of recent technological transformations in the energy industry. Thus, two main areas for the Iranian oil refining sector can be considered: (1) "mining the residues of refinery and their conversion into products of distillation," and (2) "mining the sulfur level of refinery residue." As a result, cost-effective upgrades technologies (slurry hydrocracking) and delayed coking will be key options for refining domestic oil refinery. Due to the unavailability of slurry-bed hydrocracking technologies, this solution can be implemented at the Iranian Oil Refineries by combining both delayed coking and fixed bed hydrocracking (ISOMAX) technologies. Consequently, the simultaneous use of delayed coking and fixed bed hydrocracking (ISOMAX) technologies is considered a suitable and applicable residue upgrading combination.

Keywords

• oil refining industry renewal
• technological competitiveness
• technological solution