Shiraz Petrochemical Company Doubles Operating Income

Shiraz Petrochemical Company in the southern Fars Province generated an operating income of $200 million in the first half of the current Iranian year (March 21-Sept. 22), which was 106% more than the amount made by the company in the same period of last year.
The company earned a net profit of $80 million during the period, the Oil Ministry’s news agency Shana reported.
The plant produced close to 1.76 million tons of petrochemical products, including 840,000 tons of urea in the six-month period. A part of its products were sold in the local market and the rest were exported to international markets.
Considering the completion of repair and maintenance of some units, the company plans to produce 1.4 million tons of various products in the second half of the year.
Shiraz Petrochemical Company, the first fertilizer production facility of Iran, was founded in 1959. 
The major feedstock for the operating plants are natural gas, limestone and salt. The natural gas source is from the main cross-country pipeline, while the limestone and salt are extracted from the adjacent mines.
The initial goal of the company was to meet the fertilizer needs for the country, but it now produces a vast variety of chemicals and petrochemicals. It has a nominal production capacity of about 3.2 million tons per year and is now one of the major urea producers in the country.
Urea is mainly used as fertilizer in the agriculture sector and as raw materials in other industries. The annual production of urea is about 5 million tons in Iran, around half of which is sold domestically and the surplus is exported.
Production is projected to rise threefold by the end of the Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2017-22). Output is planned to reach 14.7 million tons per annum after the expansion of several plants.