Determination of Optimum Petroleum Refining Pattern in the National Energy Network Utilizing a Disaggregated Model Refinery

A long term energy plan that optimize the investment and operation cost of whole energy system in an integrated approach, would have an important effect on economy of the country and can improve Iran’s role in world energy markets. The history of long term energy planning in Iran, has been restricted to some programs provided by local and foreign advisors; however because of not conformity to socio - economic transformations, most of these programs were not so useful. Iran with 8.6% of total discovered oil reserves of the world, has a good potential for oil refining and exportation of products. Regretfully since the last years, even by using 9 petroleum refineries with the capacity of about 1.5 million barrel per day, not only there was not a suitable amount of export, but also there was a considerable amount of import for oil products, especially gasoline. Using refineries with more efficient refining pattern would help to overcome this deficiency and better utilizing the potential of country. In this thesis, petroleum refineries are disaggregated to their internal refining processes and simulated in the national energy network. The aim is determination of optimum petroleum refining pattern during years 2004 to 2029 from the macro viewpoint. Considering the existing potentials and capacities, the results of most scenarios show that future programs in petroleum refining industry must be constructed on basis such as expansion of capacities, tendency to products exportation, especially light products, and expansion of catalytic converter units.