Afghanistan Times
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AT Monitoring Desk-KABUL: Iranian Oil officials expressed the country’s readiness to build joint oil refineries in Afghanistan, Iranian MEHR news agency reported Tuesday.
“A new storage tank will soon come to stream in South Khorasan Province saying “Birjand Oil Tank Farm with a capacity of storing 100 thousand barrels of various oil products will start operation in the coming two months,” the agency quoted Managing Director of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) Abbas Kazemi, as saying.
“Iran is capable of supplying Afghanistan’s oil products demand for the next 30 years urging Afghan officials to enter into negotiations over pipeline construction,” he added.
Kazemi recalled that Iran has reached the stable capacity of export 400 thousand barrels of oil products per day which represents a remarkable record in the present circumstances.
“Building pipelines for transferring oil products to Afghanistan will gain economic justification only if the volume of oil exports experiences a significant growth,” said NIORDC managing director.
Kazemi also pointed to the arrival of a large number of oil tankers in southern Iranian terminals for shipping oil products concluding “upon further negotiations, Iran is also willing to establish a joint oil refinery complex inside Afghanistan.”
The readiness comes after Kabul and Tehran have agreed to create a transit-oriented green custom path in a bid to facilities Afghan traders to transit goods in the shortest possible time in Afghanistan via Chabahar port. The agreement was reached during a meeting held between Director General of Afghanistan Customs Department Ahmad Reshad Popal and the Head of Islamic Republic of Iran’s Customs Administration (IRICA) Masoud Karbasian in Tehran.
Chabahar port city will be turn as an exports and imports hub for Afghanistan after the implementation of the deal. During meeting, Karbasian said “as two ancient countries, Iran and Afghanistan enjoy common cultures and languages and development of Afghanistan would mark an honor for Iran since expansions of bilateral relations will create deeper ties between the two states”.
“India-Afghanistan-Iran path marks one of the best transit corridors and the visit of Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Abdullah Abdullah to Chabahar indicates its importance to the neighboring country,” he said, while urging the Afghan side to remove obstacles at Mahirud border markets. He further went on enumerate major axes for expansion of customs ties between the two parties including provision of draft for a new customs agreement, electronic exchange of customs data as well as creation of joint border gates. “More facilities need to be provided with further collaboration between customs of the two sides,” Reshad Popal said, adding that the meeting was to focus to create excellent trade and transit ties with the Iran.
