Restoration of the damaged facilities in Bu Ali Sina Petrochemical Complex in Mahshahr City, Khuzestan Province, which caught fire over three years ago, has started, the Managing Director Mohammad Ahmadzadeh said.
A fire at the complex in the southwest broke out in July 2016 due to a technical problem that resulted in the leakage of paraxylene, a highly flammable fuel, and a subsequent blast, the Oil Ministry news agency Shana reported.
The fire was initially contained, but a second fire erupted at one of the complex's main storage units and continued for two days.
Although the inferno had no fatalities, it caused heavy damage to the facilities of the complex's largest processing unit and some of its naphtha storage units and pipelines. Explosion of the naphtha tank was the largest of its kind in Iran’s petrochemical history.
The reconstruction project is estimated to cost $45 million and be completed by 2021.
Domestic companies and manufacturers are largely involved inst the project but pumps are imported, he noted.
Established in 1998, Bu Ali Sina is affiliated to the National Petrochemical Company. Its feedstock is light and heavy naphtha and pyrolysis gasoline.
The company produces key aromatic compounds such as paraxylene and benzene.
Paraxylene is widely used as feedstock to manufacture industrial chemicals, notably terephthalic acid, purified terephthalic acid and dimethyl-terephthalate, which are used to manufacture PET polyesters.
Benzene is used to make plastics, resins, synthetic fibers, rubber lubricants, dyes, detergents, drugs and pesticides.
The complex has an annual production capacity of 1.25 million tons, part of which is used by domestic companies and the rest is exported to the Persian Gulf littoral states, Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia.
Petrochemicals constitute more than one-fourth of Iran’s non-oil exports with products destined to 30 countries.
The petrochemical industry has played a key role in domestic economic growth as it creates value-added and reduces the sale of oil and gas on which the economy has been dependent for decades.
With abundant hydrocarbon reserves and increase in private sector investments, Iran is struggling to protect its global status in the key sector and broaden its scope.
With $12 billion earned by exporting various products in 2019, the pretrochem sector is placed at the top of the list of non-oil exports.
