Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15
By Dalga Khatinoglu – Trend:
Iran increased petrochemical products export during 8 months of the current fiscal year (started on March 21), by 754,000 tons to 13.7 million tons.
However the revenues declined by more than $1 billion to $6.75 billion, a report prepared by Iran’s Oil Ministry said.
According to the report, about 10 million tons of petrochemical products worth $5.8 billion were also sold domestically. Some 55% of the amount was feedstock, sold among petrochemical complexes.
The volume and value of domestic sales of petrochemical products increased by 15 percent and 9.5 percent respectively, within 8 months of the current fiscal year, compared to the same period of last year.
Iran produced 33.5 million tons of petrochemical products in 8 months, 15 percent less than scheduled plan and projects to increase this volume to 52 million tons by March 20, 2017.
Last year, Iran produced 48 million tons of petrochemicals.
According to annual report of National Iranian Petrochemical Company, obtained by Trend on Nov.16, Iran’s idle petrochemical capacity stood at 10.835 million tons during the last fiscal year.
The report says that Iran consumed 53.5 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) of natural gas, of which 44 percent was feedstock in petrochemical plants during the last fiscal year. Some 5.57 MT of gas condensate, 1.775 MT of Naphtha, 1.631 MT of ethane, 87,000 barrels of NGLs as well 210,000 barrels of kerosene was consumed by petrochemical plants.
Iran plans to increase the nominal petrochemical production capacity to 180 million tons per year by 2025.
According to Iran Custom Administration’s statistics, Iran’s petrochemical products export reached 18.719 million tons in the first half of the current fiscal year, indicating a 53 percent growth compared to the same period in last year.
Dalga Khatinoglu is the head of Trend Agency's Iran news service, follow him on Twitter: @dalgakhatinoglu