Baku, Azerbaijan, May 24
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: The first all-Iranian petrochemical unit will come on stream in the first half of the current year.
The Iranian solar year starts on March 20.
National Iranian Petrochemical Company's Managing Director Abbas Sheri Moqaddam said the Takhte Jamshid petrochemical unit will be established without relying on foreign equipment, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on May 24.
The Construction of the unit has progressed by 95 percent, he added.
The petrochemical unit is projected to produce 30,000 tonnes of SBR and 18,000 tonnes of PBR per year.
On February 17, the National Iranian Petrochemical Company's managing director Abbas 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 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.
Iran's Oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said in September 2013 that the value of Iran's annual petrochemical output may reach $40 billion.
For the time being, the value of domestic petrochemical products per year is about $20 billion, he said, hoping that the figure would increase to $40 billion.
Between 1996 and 2006, the first surge in the value of petrochemical output occurred, so that the annual production increased from $1 billion to $20 billion, IRNA quoted Zanganeh as saying at the time.
In the second surge, the figure will reach $40 billion, he added.