Lordegan Petrochemical Plant in western Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari Province was inaugurated on Thursday.
The plant will produce 1.075 million tons of urea and 677,000 tons of ammonia and generate $240 million annually, the Oil Ministry news agency Shana reported.
It is expected to consume 749 million cubic meters of natural gas as feedstock per annum.
More than half of the equipment used in the complex was provided by domestic manufacturers following national indigenization policies after Donald Trump, the outgoing US president, abandoned the historic Iran nuclear deal in late 2018 and imposed an economic siege on Iran’s key sectors, namely oil, banking and shipping.
Stretching over 100 hectares construction of the plant cost $945 million.
Ammonia is largely used in the production of fertilizers, nitrates, ammonium sulfate, mono ammonium phosphate, diammonium phosphate and urea.
Urea is mainly used as key fertilizer in agriculture and as raw material in other industries. Urea production is expected to double by the end of the Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2017-22).
Earlier reports said urea output would reach 14.7 million tons per annum from 6.5 million tons now after eight petrochemical plants come on stream.
Domestic consumption of urea is 2 million tons per year and the surplus can be exported. Most of the products of Lordegan Complex is for export and the first shipment is slated for next month. The company has said it has plans to produce crystal melamine and recycle carbon dioxide in the near future.
Iran plans to add almost 8.4 million tons per year to ammonia output by 2026 with 20 new plants estimated to cost $2 billion.
Petrochemical production capacity should reach 100 million tons per year by 2022 from the current 70 million and 80% more than the 2013 level, the oil minister said at the Lordegan ceremony held via video conference in Tehran.
Iran’s expanding petrochemical sector annually earns $15 billion. “This is expected to reach $25 billion by 2022, and $37b by 2026 when production will reach 133 million tons,” Shana quoted Bijan Namdar Zanganeh as saying.
"As we promised, 19 petrochemical projects with a value of $11.4 billion and 25-million-ton capacity will come on stream in this fiscal year [March 2021],” he said.
Since the beginning of the current Persian calendar year six petrochemical plants, including the Lordegan plant, have opened at a cost of $3 billion.
Domestic knowledge-based companies are involved in the construction of the plants helping growth of the non-oil sector, promoting self-sufficiency and creating jobs.
