Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 30
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Japanese Mitsubishi has expressed interest in participating in Iran's petrochemical projects.
Pointing to the features of human natural resources in Iran, Hideki Konishi, an official with Mitsubishi's petrochemicals said that Mitsubishi will not impose any restrictions regarding its activity in Iran, IRNA news agency reported Dec. 30.
He further said that his company is engaged in various industrial fields, such as energy, metals, machinery and transport adding that the company is not restricted to manufacturing automobiles only.
According to him the company has cooperation with more than 90 countries in the world in different fields of micro industry and natural resources.
Earlier in October, Takahisa Miyauchi, member of the board and senior executive vice president of Mitsubishi's chemicals group, said the Japanese company has purchased millions of dollars of Iranian petrochemicals over the past five years, adding that his company was ready to invest in Iran 's petrochemical projects.
The Iranian government should set a fixed price for petrochemical feedstock for 10-15 years and sell end products to Japanese investors, Miyauchi said.
Iran's petrochemical output hit 44.4 million tons in the past Iranian fiscal year (ended on March 20), 10 percent more year-on-year.
The country's actual production capacity is around 60 million tons, but the shortage of natural gas as feedstock, old production units, and the problem of sanctions, which has dropped exports, have caused petrochemical complexes to work at lower capacities.
Iranian petrochemical plants use 37 million cubic meters of natural gas per day, while Iran could deliver only 2.8 million tons of ethane to plants during last year totally. The country planned to increase this volume to 4.2 million tons this year.
The Islamic Republic hopes to realize an output of 120 million tons of petrochemicals by 2020 and 180 million tons by 2025.
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