Four petrochemical projects belonging to the Oil Industry Pension Funds in Asalouyeh, Bushehr Province, are underway and will be completed over the next two years, the head of the Board of Directors at the pension funds said.
“The plans are aimed at raising the National Petrochemical Company’s polyethylene and propylene production capacity,” Abdolhossein Bayat was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
Giving a breakdown, he noted that Soroush high-density polyethylene (HDPE) unit, Negin HDPE unit, Alayeh Mahestan propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit and an olefin unit in Kangan Petro-Refining Company (all in Bushehr Province) are slated to go on stream in 2024 and 2025 respectively.
Bayat said the HDPE units have a capacity of 300,000 tons each, adding that the olefin unit has a capacity of 1 million tons of products.
The PDH unit has a capacity of 450,000 tons.
PDH is used to produce polymer-grade propylene from propane independent of a steam cracker or fluid catalytic cracking unit.
Kangan Petro-Refining Company was launched last February. The natural gas liquid recovery plant seeks to underpin the sustainable supply of feedstock to petrochemical plants in the region.
Constructed on a 65-hectare plot, the project has created jobs for more than 1,000 people in the southern province.
The processing facility has an annual production capacity of 3.75 million tons of NGLs and assists the development of downstream petrochemical sector.
NGLs are a group of hydrocarbons, including pentane, ethane, propane and butane. These are differentiated from one another by the number of carbon atoms in their molecular chain.
Petrochem Feedstock
They have a wide variety of applications ranging from specialized fuels (e.g., propane, butane) to petrochemical feedstock for making products like plastic and fertilizers.
The NGL processing plant receives natural gas as feedstock from Phase 12 of the South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf for producing 2 million tons of ethane, 1 million tons of propane, 500,000 tons of butane and 250,000 tons of pentane annually.
Exporting the commodities to international markets can generate at least $1 billion a year in revenues for the company.
Petrochemical plants across the country manufacture 333 grades of polymers, plus 40 types of chemicals.
Close to $7 billion have been invested in the sector in the past six years. Of the total annual output, 35% are bought by local companies and converted into value-added products and the rest is exported.
