Baku, Azerbaijan, May 4
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Petrochemicals account for over 40 percent of Iran's non-oil exports, Mohammad-Hossein Peivandi, Deputy Director of the National Iranian Petrochemical Industries Company, said.
Many measures have been taken in the upstream sector of the petrochemical industry and this sector has been developed, Iran's IRIB quoted Peivandi as saying on May 4.
To develop the downstream sector of the petrochemical industry, a specific range of materials should be produced using natural gas as the input, he explained.
Also just 5-7 percent of the country's hydrocarbon output is fed into the petrochemical units, but this amount leads to the production of 44 million metric tons of petrochemical, he noted.
He expressed hope that the petrochemical production would increase to 180 million metric tons by Iranian fiscal year 1404 (March 2025-March 2026).
Iran's total non-oil exports, including gas condensates, reached $50 billion in the past Iranian fiscal year, which ended on March 20, showing a growth of 19 percent compared to the figure for the previous year.
Iran needs $31 billion to inaugurate 60 semi-finished petrochemical projects. Once the projects come on stream, they will increase the country's annual petrochemical output by 55 million metric tons.
According to officials, $74 billion is needed to expand the national petrochemical industry in the next 8-10 years.
Edited by CN