The National Petrochemical Company has plans to lift added value and help curb oil export, director of projects at the NPC said.
Nineteen projects will come on stream by the end of the next Persian calendar year in March and several more are to be completed by 2025, the NPC news website Nipna reported Amir Vakilzadeh as saying.
Of the total petrochemical projects almost 60% are in Asalouyeh and Mahshahr in south and southwest and the rest in other regions.
By March 2022 annual petrochemical output is expected to reach 100 million tons from 76 million tons now, and 133 million tons by 2025 worth $37 billion.
Placing plans of the key industry in three categories, he said: "The first includes three mega-projects that will use mixed feedstock. In the second are methanol to propylene conversion projects in the northern and southern coasts to augment propylene production.
The third includes 22 projects that will provide feedstock to the downstream sector and expand added value,” Vakilzadeh said. “An estimated $3 billion is needed for the projects that would produce goods worth $11 billion.”
Methanol, for example, is currently priced at around $200 to $300 per ton, but turning it into value-added products raises its price up to $1,500/ton, he stressed.
Three projects are underway in Asalouyeh in the south to convert methanol to propylene for the downstream industries.
Propylene is a key item that can be transformed into value added products like polypropylene and create jobs in the downstream petrochemical sector.
“Last year, about $2 billion was spent to import 1.3 million tons of petrochemicals,” Vakilzadeh said, adding that the figure will be reduced by up to 70% when the aforementioned projects come online.
Projects to collect associated petroleum gas as well as ethane recovery projects will come online next year to underpin sustainable supply of feedstock to petrochemical plants.
One of the major projects of the NPC is construction of a gas-to-polypropylene (GTPP) plant in Eslamabad-e-Gharb County, Kermanshah Province.
The project, which is expected to be complete in five years, will lead to the production of goods with local technical knowledge, in which “we previously depended on foreign companies.”
