Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 13
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran plans to increase petrochemical output capacity by 25 percent by March 2017, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the Iranian oil minister, said.
Various petrochemical projects including the second phase of Pardis Petrochemical Complex for producing urea and ammonia, will come on stream by March 2017, Zanganeh said, Fars news agency reported April 13.
Ore and ammonia units of Marvdasht petrochemical complex with 1.7 million tons of production capacity are expected to become operational by the end of this fiscal year as well, Zanganeh added.
The Iranian minister further said that Kaveh Petrochemical Complex which will have a capacity to produce 2.5 million tons of methanol per annum also is expected to come on stream by March 2017.
The phase 2 of Kavian Petrochemical plant, with one million ton ethylene production capacity will be completed this year, Zanganeh added.
Kavian Petrochemical plant is the world's largest ethylene producing unit, according to Iranian officials. Once phase 2 of this massive complex comes into production, the total production capacity of the complex will exceed 2 million tons per year.
Zanganeh said that Mahabad, Kordestan, Lorestan, Takht-e Jamshid and Dalahou projects are other petrochemical complexes that will be launched before the year-end(March 2017).
He further said that the petrochemical industry is in a suitable condition in terms of natural gas feedstock supply, adding the produced LPG and propane also are enough for feedstock.
Iran currently produces $20 billion worth of petrochemicals per year, meanwhile the figure will be doubled by 2021, the Iranian minister said.
Petrochemical plants in Iran had to work below the actual production capacity due to the shortage of natural gas as feedstock, old production units and the sanctions, which has caused a decline in exports.
The country's petrochemical output capacity currently stands at 61 million tons. The Islamic Republic hopes to bring this capacity to 120 million tons by 2020 and 180 million tons by 2025.
Iran's petrochemical exports reached 19 million tons, worth $9.5 billion in the last fiscal year (ended March 20).
Over 46 million tons of petrochemical products were produced in the country in last fiscal year, 2.5 million tons more year on year.