The deputy oil minister stated that producing 40 million tons of petrochemical products instead of 120 million tons is disappointing, referring to the state of the petrochemical sector following the inappropriate implementation of Article 44 of the Constitution.
Seyed Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh in the general assembly of the National Petrochemical Company (NPC), criticized the process whereby Iranian banks provide financial resources for the oil industry's strategic projects, adding the oil ministry's continual efforts to obtain banking resources for the Persian Gulf Star project have been to no avail. "Plenty of the project's goods are being held due to lack of finance by customs or by the producer companies."
One of the oil ministry's policies in order to develop the petrochemical industry, is to support the private sector in all respects, Hamaneh said, IRNA reported. Abbas Shari-Moghadam, deputy oil minister and managing director of NPC, said the private sector needs to be encouraged, keeping in mind that the petrochemical industry is highly lucrative. With five percent of resources, the industry has produced 40 million tons of products valued at $20 billion. If the five percent is increased to 20 percent, the generated return will stand at $400 billion excluding the adjunct industries, Shari-Moghadam said.
"Iran is one of the safest countries for petrochemical investment in the region," first vice president, Es'haq Jahangiri, said during the 11th international Iran Petrochemical Forum (IPF) held in Tehran earlier in June. “We give assurances of the Iranian government's support equally to domestic as well as foreign private sector investors.” The natural gas resources, ethane, other types of feedstock and the growing local market all allow Iran to have a special status in attracting local and foreign private investments, oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said last month.
