The National Petrochemical Company says it aims to raise petrochemical output to more than 58 million tons in the present fiscal that ends in March 2018 from 50.6 million tons in the previous fiscal.
The NPC said in a statement that nominal petrochemical production capacity, which stood at 61.9 million tons in the previous fiscal, is slated to reach 72 million tons this year, excluding output from a nitrogen trifluoride unit in the southern city of Bandar Imam Khomeini, Shana reported.
Based on projections, sales of petrochemicals will increase to 32.2 million tons by the end of this fiscal, of which 23.5 million tons are for exports. Total petrochemical sales in the past year amounted to 27.6 million tons.
The state-owned company expects to earn $11.7 billion in revenues from exports and $5.7 billion from domestic sales.
According to published reports, Iran holds 38% of the petrochemical market in the Middle East, but only produces 4.8% of the world's petrochemicals despite sitting on some of the world's largest crude oil and natural gas reserves.
As per the scheme, six petrochemical ventures, namely the third phase of Pardis Petrochemical Complex, production units of Bushehr, Damavand, Marjan and Ibn Sina petrochemical plants and Kaveh methanol complex as well as the West Ethylene Pipeline, are set to go on stream this year.
With a combined output capacity of 9.8 million tons a year, the prospective petrochemical units should create at least 2,250 jobs.
Officials say petrochemicals made up almost 22% of Iran's total exports last year.
Iran aims to attract $72 billion in foreign investment for 80 petrochemical projects that should be developed under the sixth economic development plan (2017-22).
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