Air Pollution; Iran’s Prosecutor’s Office Denies Issuing Circular on Fuel Oil Consumption in Power Plants

While the head of the Department of Environment has claimed that “the Deputy Prosecutor General sent a circular to the provinces instructing you not to prevent the burning of fuel oil (mazut) in power plants and industries,” the judiciary has denied any such circular.

Reza Khoshnoudi, Deputy Judicial Officer of the Prosecutor General’s Office, responded to Mr. Kalantari’s remarks, stating: “No circular has been issued in this regard by the Public Rights Deputy of the General Prosecutor’s Office.”

Air pollution in Iran’s major cities has received extensive media coverage in recent days, and officials of Rouhani’s government say that given the “gas shortage” and “accumulation of unsold fuel oil,” there is no choice but to consume it domestically.

In this regard, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, Iran’s Oil Minister, referring to the country’s gas shortage on Sunday, December 14, announced: “We do not want fuel oil to be consumed, but we have no choice but to deliver fuel oil to power plants.”

Essa Kalantari, head of the Department of Environment, also announced on Sunday that the sulfur content of Iran’s fuel oil is 30,000 ppm (equivalent to 3 percent), which is highly pollutant, but is being burned in the country’s power plants.

He added: The Deputy Prosecutor General, through a circular, asked the Department of Environment not to prevent the burning of fuel oil in power plants and industries: “That means someone who should enforce the clean air law has reached the conclusion from a security perspective that this fuel oil must be burned.”

Mohsen Hashemi, head of Tehran’s City Council, also announced on Sunday that due to the use of fuel oil in power plants, the concentration of sulfur dioxide in Tehran’s air doubled during the past week.

Based on official statistics from the Ministry of Oil and Power, approximately five billion liters of fuel oil were consumed in the country in 2018, of which 3.5 billion liters were in the power plant sector.

That same year, Iran had exported more than 15 billion liters of fuel oil. Fuel oil, the most polluting fossil fuel, is mostly used as fuel for ships or power plants located in remote areas.

However, since the beginning of 2020, the International Maritime Organization banned the use of fuel with sulfur content exceeding 0.5 percent in ships. The sulfur content of Iran’s produced fuel oil is between 3 to 3.5 percent, and the use of this fuel in ships has been banned for more than a year.

Iranian officials do not address this issue and only say that sanctions have prevented the sale of fuel oil in international markets.

Meanwhile, exports of Iran’s other petroleum products, including gasoline in global markets, have not only not decreased, but have increased significantly. American sanctions only target Iran’s crude oil sales and do not apply to petroleum products.

Two-thirds of Iran’s exported gasoline goes to neighboring countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Armenia, with the rest of the shipments mainly heading to African markets, Syria, or Venezuela.

For example, seven-month customs statistics for the current year show that Iran exported 1.4 billion dollars worth of gasoline. Iran’s total gasoline exports in the past 12 months of the solar year were less than half a billion dollars.

Also, due to the age and outdated technology of Iran’s refineries, one-quarter of the oil delivered to refineries is converted to fuel oil; an issue that Kalantari also mentioned, saying that 400 or 500 thousand barrels of fuel oil are produced daily.

He said this produced fuel oil either must be exported or must be consumed, because if the storage tanks fill up, either the refinery must be shut down or it must be dumped somewhere like a desert, since they cannot shut down the refinery because people need gasoline.

Source: Radio Farda