Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 15
By Khalid Kazimov -- Trend:
The shareholders of petrochemical companies with liquid intake in Iran have written to President Hassan Rouhani that their business is going to go bankrupt in the near future.
The signatories have claimed that a recent reduction in the Oil Ministry's discount to liquid feed given to their industrial units is going to bring them irreparable loss, Tasnim news agency reported Sept. 15.
"Mr. President, are you aware of the business in liquid petrochemicals? Do you know that strategic products such as polyethylene, polypropylene, butadiene, poly-butadiene, acetic acid, vinyl acetate, ethylene oxide, ethylene glycol, butanol, 2-Ethylhexanols, and ethanolamines are endangered; and that with the hypothetic 5-percent reduction in discount on liquid gas fed to the factories producing these product, 15,000 people are placed on the verge of joblessness?" they have written in their letter.
They continue to explain that the cost of their products has amounted to an average of 84 percent of prices over the past five years.
The signatories add that the currency market also leaves them unable to decide whether their business will make a profit, given the fact that in the first three months of the current Iranian year (since March 21), they weren't able to gratify a predicted 40-percent profit. They go on to add that the only thing that would prevent their bankruptcy is if the government fixes currency rates as it has promised.
In a similar case, the government's order to lower iron pellets and impose royalties on the product lead to a 60-percent drop in the shares of this product in the market.
Also, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh previously said the price of 13 cents for a unit of gas given to petrochemical complexes was fixed and not negotiable, also leaving the concerned businessmen in a state of frustration.
Edited by CN