Iran has launched the world’s largest floating oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf waters which is expected to significantly increase Iran’s capacity for crude oil storage and exports.
The 2.2-million-barrel floating oil storage unit (FSU), dubbed as the Persian Gulf, came on stream in Soroush oil region on Sunday.
The FSU has the capacity to take in some 200,000 barrels per day of heavy crude oil produced in Iran’s offshore oil fields of Soroush and Nowruz.
The floating terminal has a length of 337 meters, a width of 60 meters and a height of 33 meters. The oil tanker has attracted a lump sum of $300 million as investment.
In a time of plunging oil prices in world markets, Iran’s inauguration of its floating oil terminal would help reduce costs of production, transportation, unloading, and exports of crude oil; with oil prices sinking down even below $50 per barrel, analysts say countries who have reduced their costs of production and exports of oil to the lowest possible figures would be the real winners of current oil markets.
Iran’s total in-place oil reserves have been estimated at more than 560 billion barrels, with about 140 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Heavy and extra-heavy varieties of crude oil account for roughly 70-100 billion barrels of the total reserves.
