Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.15
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Chinese financiers will invest in Iran's five petrochemical projects, which are facing budget deficit, to speed up their implementation, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on October 15.
National Iranian Petrochemical Company's Managing Director Abbas Sheri Moqaddam said the projects are underway in the southern Assalouyeh region.
He went on to say that Iran holds a 22.4-percent share of petrochemical output in the Middle East and a 2.3-percent share of the global petrochemical output.
In February, Sheri Moqaddam said Iran needs $31 billion to inaugurate 60 semi-finished petrochemical projects.
To date, just $5 billion is estimated to be spent in the projects, the Mehr News Agency quoted Sheri Moqaddam as saying.
Once the projects come on stream, they will increase the country's annual petrochemical output by 55 million tons, he said, adding that $74 billion is needed to expand the national petrochemical industry in the next 8-10 years.
Between 1996 and 2006, because of the surge in the value of petrochemical output, Iran's annual production increased from $1 billion to $20 billion.
In Sept. 2013, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the value of the country's annual petrochemical output may double to $40 billion.