February 28, 2020
After almost a year of public complaints, the Tehran municipality says it has finally been able to determine that a recurring stench in several parts of the city stems from a fuel that violates standards but is still being used.
And that means the fuel not only stinks, but is a significant contributor to the air pollution that recently closed Tehran’s schools for an entire week.
The fuel is what is called mazut in Iran. In the West, mazut is not used, but is broken down and turned into diesel.
The mazut causing the odor is non-standard with a very high concentration of sulfur and is being used in industrial plants in Shahr-e Rey in the south of Tehran, the municipality has now told reporters.
The smell arose back in January and rumors quickly spread about the possibility that the odor meant an imminent eruption of Mount Damavand about 40 miles (65 km) to the northeast of Tehran.
There were conspiracy theories, too. Tehran Governor General Anoushirvan Mohseni-Bandpey suggested that a chemical with a strong stench had been released deliberately or inadvertently by enemies. It now turns out it was released by the regime itself
The obnoxious odor is most frequently noticed in the southern parts of the city. Wealthier residents most often comment on it when driving to Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery and Tehran’s International Airport south of the city.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi himself was so “seriously bothered” by the stench on his way to the Shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini in the cemetery that he tasked the president with resolving the issue before the end of its term in 2021, environment protection chief Issa Kalantari said in March.
Radio Farda notes that the stench has become a subject of political jokes, too. “If they follow the stench, they will arrive at the doorstep of the Majlis,” one Twitter user joked.
Even politicians have been known to joke about the odor. When asked by a reporter about the source of the “foul smell,” the reformist chairman of the Tehran City Council, Mohsen Hashemi, quoted a friend as saying: “It’s the stench of the mess we have made.”
The odor comes mostly in the cold months of the year. Now Zohreh Ebadati of the municipal staff has given away the secret. On December 22, she explained that there is a shortage of natural gas for industrial plants in the winter because the gas is diverted for home heating. To replace the lost natural gas, the government supplies mazut to industrial customers.
The level of sulfur in mazut produced in Iran is nearly 3.5 percent, which is seven times more than the international standards, according to Radio Farda, and its usage is strictly banned in urban areas, specifically in cities like Tehran that are struggling with air pollution.
The disclosure comes when officials have repeatedly boasted of the country’s “absolute self-sufficiency” in natural gas.
As recently as December 8, President Rohani proudly declared that the country was self-sufficient in natural gas, gasoline and diesel, and had started exporting those three products.
“In the past, our gas exports had to be suspended in the winter months. Today exports continue despite the cold winters,” he told the Majlis.
It is true that Iran exports natural gas, but it turns out that is not because there is an abundance of gas, but to make money after forcing local industries to use mazut.
Mazut is a Russian word, and refers to a viscous liquid residue from the distillation of crude petroleum.
Radio Farda said that since Iran’s refineries are very old and deprived of new technologies, 24 percent of the crude oil has been turned into mazut rather than high-value products like gasoline and diesel.
In some Iranian refineries, the volume of mazut is even higher, Radio Farda reported. For example, 41 percent of the crude fed into the Kermanshah refinery turns into mazut. Therefore, the value of its products is even less than the crude that it receives, i.e., it is an apparent loss-making complex.
In 2016, Iran had a plan to invest $15 billion to upgrade eight old refineries so as to reduce mazut production from 24 percent to less than 10 percent of the crude fed into them. But Radio Farda said the plan was shelved.
Based on the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) regulations, the density of sulfur in vessel fuel should be less than 0.5 percent, while it is 3.5 percent in the mazut produced in Iran.
Iranian mazut is mainly used in the country’s cement plants and power stations. The Ministry of Energy’s data shows that the volume of mazut used in power stations last spring rose to as much as 72 percent. However, in its latest weekly and monthly reports, the ministry has stopped giving the volume of mazut used in the country’s power stations.
Shahr-e Rey’s thermal power plant, now singled out as the main source of the stench that pesters residents, was constructed in 1977, two years before the revolution. At the time, the plant produced one-fourth of the electricity needed in Iran. The plant has become so old and dilapidated that it has lost half of its capacity, Radio Farda reports.