The National Petrochemical Company (NPC) has paid nearly $4.5 billion of its outstanding debts to foreign banks and financial institutions, said the managing director of Petrochemical Commercial Company International (PCCI), Shana news agency reported.
The NPC is in negotiations with foreign banks to repay the borrowings for its projects, Issa Mashayekhi said. “The repayments are so far on schedule.” Last year a total of $6 billion in foreign funds were obtained for petrochemical projects, Mashayekhi said, noting that foreign funding was halted since 2008.
Petrochemical exports are still hampered by western sanctions though embargo on sales is suspended during negotiations with global powers. Transferring payments for sales and securing insurance for exports remain the biggest hurdle for petrochemical producers. “The NPC is not able to receive revenues from petrochemical exports,” said the official. “We are negotiating with foreign banks and institutions to receive the first installment of our petrochemical export revenues.”
Iran’s petrochemical industry is the second largest source of foreign revenue. Exports increased 5% year-on-year in the first half of the current Iranian year (began March 2014). Export volume increased 5% year-on-year to 7.8 million metric tons, with the value rising 7% year-on-year to $5.1 billion.
In terms of value, the country hopes to export $12 billion of petrochemical products before the year is out (March 2015).
Mashayekhi added that the petrochemical sector is important for foreign investors, but investment is contingent on the nuclear talks and whether a final agreement would be reached by next June. On November 24, 2013, Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) reached an interim deal on Iran’s nuclear program. Under the interim deal, Iran will continue to get access to $700 million a month from oil-export revenue held in accounts frozen by US sanctions. But the two sides failed to meet a self-imposed Nov. 24 deadline for resolving the dispute and gave themselves until the end of June for further negotiations.
