Smuggled Gasoil Uncovered in 4 Minutes

West Azarbaijan Province shares more than 800 kilometers of border with the three countries of Nakhchivan, Turkey and Iraq. The northwestern Iranian province has established four filling stations for refueling more than 550 vehicles crossing the Bazargan border. Around 65% of these cars are non-Iranian and given the sharp difference in gasoil price in Iran and neighboring countries, preventing fuel smuggling along the borders is an inevitable must.

In a bid to facilitate the uncovering of smuggled fuel cargoes, Iranian specialists have developed a system known as gasoil detector, which is able to explore gasoil at 3-300 meter distances without any physical contact.

Some features of gasoil detector, which has been designed to gauge gasoil levels in buses and trucks, are the possibility of identifying any sort of camouflage, non-interference in the impacts of numerous targets and estimation of gasoil volume.

Non-influence by waves and noise of high-pressure posts and telecom stations, startup within five seconds and detection of gasoil in less than four minutes constitute other features of this system.

System Installed at Iran Borders

Kasra Nouri, general director of public relations at Iran's Ministry of Petroleum, heaped praise on the developers of the gasoil detection system.

"We hope that this system will be installed as soon as possible at other border posts in Iran in order to significantly prevent fuel smuggling out of the country," he said.

500 Vehicles Cross Bazargan Every Day

Ahmad Mojarrad, director of Urmia zone of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC), said that 3.8% of Iran's fuel is consumed in West Azarbaijan Province which stands in the 11th position in terms of fuel consumption.

He said that fuel smuggling prevention haul was 26% higher year-on-year during the first half of the current calendar year (ends on 20 March 2018).

"That was equivalent to IRR 550 billion in revenue, part of which was achieved through gasoil detection system," he said. "In light of planning and consultations, this system will have soon been installed in all border points in Iran so that we would no longer witness any fuel smuggling via Iran's borders," said Mojarrad. "In less than four minutes, this system can estimate the amount of gasoil in the vehicle and where the car's hidden tank is stashed."

The Urmia zone comprises central, Salmas, Bazargan, Khoy and Makou districts.

"Half of our revenue and activity comes from Bazargan," Mojarrad said.

The fuel storage capacity of the Urmia zone is around 72 million liters, he added, noting that Makou was half-closed due to the gas supply policy of Ministry of Petroleum.

However, he said, a new storage site is about to come online 30 kilometers from Urmia with a capacity of 120 million liters.

1.6 ml/d Consumption

The Urmia zone has 114 liquid oil products retailers plus 71 CNG filling stations. Add to this 415 rural distribution centers. It is noteworthy that 80% of filling stations in this zone are classified as premium.

The Urmia zone is the fourth largest consumer of CNG among Iranian provinces and that is why the waiting period for vehicles at gas stations is zero.

Composition and volume of fuel consumption at West Azarbaijan Province is: 1.6 ml/d of gasoline, 850,000 l/d of kerosene, 2 ml/d of gasoil and 800,000 cubic meters a day of CNG. During the first six months of the current year, gasoline, kerosene and gasoil consumption have increased 8, 8.2 and 16%, respectively. The reason was cold snap and concomitant fuel storage by households and power plants, as well as development of Makou and Bazargan districts.

Gasoil Export Potential

The per capita gasoline consumption in West Azarbaijan Province stands at 240 liters, while this figure is on average 328 liters in Iran. This province also accounts for 3% of Iran's total gasoline consumption and the province stands first in terms of kerosene consumption.

One of good potentialities of West Azarbaijan Province is gasoil exports to neighboring countries. The provincial zone of NIOPDC has found good customers in Iraq in recent years. Since 2016, more than 100 million liters of gasoline has been exported to Iraq's Kurdistan region.

Fruitful negotiations have also been held for exporting fuel oil to Nakhchivan.