DUSHANBE, March 2, 2016, Asia-Plus — Tajik authorities have denied information of Iranian fuel deliveries to Tajikistan as ‘baseless.’
Barqi Tojik (integrated power company of Tajikistan) says that information about delivery of 2.9 million liters of Iranian oil products to Tajikistan in January this year does not correspond to the facts.
We will recall that Iranian news agency
Mehr
(MNA) reported on February 3 that National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) has announced the official launch of exporting Iranian gas oil to Tajikistan for the first time in the history of the two countries.
After months of negotiations and the removal of international sanctions, the first shipment of Iranian gas oil was reportedly exported to Tajikistan to turn it into the third customer of Iran’s fuel oil after Iraq and Afghanistan.
NIORDC Provincial Director Mohammad-Mehdi Gharaei noted that the first ever gas oil shipment to Tajikistan was transported through land borders on Khorasan Razavi province.
“Previously, Iranian oil products had merely been exported to Afghanistan via Dogharoun Border as the biggest border and customs office between the two sides,” the official stressed adding “in view of the post-JCPOA conditions, the request to purchase Iranian gas oil on the part of Tajikistan has been carried out in early February.”
Gharaei maintained that the amount of gasoil export to Tajikistan has been 2.9 million liters in the first shipment; “considering the high quality of Iranian oil products, more demand is expected to occur on the part of neighboring countries.”
NIORDC Deputy Managing Director for International Affairs Esmaeil Hasham-Firouz had earlier evaluated the consumer market of Tajikistan for gas oil to be 2.5 to 3 million liters per day.
Established on March 8, 1991, National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) is part of the Ministry of Petroleum of Iran. The company undertook to perform all operations relating to refining and distribution of oil products. Although NIORDC was formed in the 1990s, the company has actually inherited 90 years of Iran’s oil industries” experiences in the fields of refining, transfer and distribution of oil products, as well as, engineering and construction of installations of oil industries.
Meanwhile, Yormahmad Begahmadov, the head the Oil and Gas Extraction and Processing Department at the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, says Iran supplied only 258 tons o oil products to Tajikistan in 2015.
