BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 8
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
Iran's methanol production potential will reach 23 million tons in five years later, and 5 million tons of the product will be directed to the production of propylene, Deputy Oil Minister and Executive Director of Iran’s National Petrochemical Company Behzad Mohammadi told IRNA, Trend reports.
The deputy minister emphasized that at present, Iran's propylene production is 950,000 tons per year.
Mohammadi added that given the country's domestic needs, this figure is insufficient.
The director noted that minimum 22 main projects will be developed for the production of propylene, and a variety of products will be manufactured in the downstream industry.
"Currently, propylene product is produced from propane gas at petrochemical plants in Iran," he said.
Mohammadi said that technical knowledge on the production of propylene from methanol has been obtained and work is underway in this direction.
The deputy minister stressed that although the production of propylene from methanol began in 2013 in cooperation with a German company, it left Iran due to US sanctions against Iran, so Iran started to work on launching the production on its own.
"The preliminary work has been done to produce propylene from methanol, and efforts are taken to produce catalysts domestically. At the same time, there are no problems with the supply of catalysts," he said.
According to the deputy minister, Iran is currently focusing on methanol production in Asaluyeh county of Bushehr Province (southern Iran).
"It is planned to create a propylene park in Asaluyeh. The additional volume of methanol produced in the county will be used to be converted into propylene," he said.