Islamic Republic of Iran to launch 3 new petchem plants
Iran’s Oil Ministry plans to set up three new petrochemical plants in the near future to increase its gains by producing more propylene, an Iranian official says.
Hamidreza Seyyed Jafari, the corporate planning director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC), said that the new plants will be launched at the refineries of Imam Khomeini, Shazand and Isfahan, Mehr news agency reported.
Seyyed Jafari added that after launching the new plants the refineries are due to produce propylene as a valuable petrochemical product, instead of heating oil.
The development came as the managing director of the National Iranian Petrochemical Company (NIPC), Abdolhossein Bayat, said on Tuesday that Iran’s petrochemical exports will reach $14 billion by March 19, 2012.
Bayat further explained that Iranian companies produced more than 10.2 million tons of petrochemicals in the first three months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21 to June 21), showing a two-percent growth compared to the same period last year.
He pointed out that Iran exported 4.1 million tons of petrochemical products worth $3.1 billion in the mentioned period — a 29-percent increase over the same period last year.
The products included polyethylene, methanol, benzene, ammonia, sulphur, PVC and propylene.
Iran has expanded the range and volume of its petrochemical products significantly over the past few years, and the NIPC has become the second largest producer and exporter of petrochemicals in the Middle East.
