Iran to raise share of petrochemicals in non-oil export by 2 percent

Azerbaijan, Baku, April 28/ Trend F.Milad/

The share of petrochemicals in non-oil export of Iran will be increased by 2 percent in the current calendar year, and will reach 46 percent, the managing director of the National Petrochemical Company Abdolhossein Bayat said.

Feedstock for petrochemical units will be provided and the share of petrochemicals in non-oil export will increase to 46 percent from 44 percent due to the fact that the South Pars gas field phases come on stream, Bayat told the IRNA News Agency.

Iran will start tapping the phases 15, 16, 17 and 18 of the South Pars gas field in the near future, the deputy director of the Pars Oil and Gas Company Gholamreza Bahmannia said on Friday.

Bahmannia added that the phases will come on stream by the end of the current calendar year (March 2013), the IRIB reported.

The South Pars gas field accounts for some 40 per cent of the country's total gas output, he said, adding that once phases 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20 and 21 come on- stream, the capacity will reach 70 per cent.

Iran should invest $36 billion per year in the domestic oil industry by the end of the fifth five-year development plan (2015), the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said last week.

"The figure will be increased to $40 billion in the best case and dropped to $30 billion in the worst case," the NIOC head Ahmad Qalebani added, ISNA news agency reported.

The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar.

The Iranian share which is divided into 29 phases has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight per cent of the total world reserves and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.