Iran Petrochem Export Revenue at $9 Billion (Mar-Dec 2018)

EghtesadOnline: Petrochemical export revenue in the first nine months of the current fiscal ending in March reached $9 billion, the National Petrochemical Company said on Saturday.

News ID: ۷۴۶۴۷۶

13 January 2019

The revenue is projected to climb to $12 billion before the fiscal year is out.

According to NIPNA, the NPC news agency, the company's output amounted to 40 million tons between March 22 and December 21, of which 16 million tons were exported to international markets, mainly Asia, Europe and South America.

Petrochemical output is forecast at 57 million tons by March, According to Financial Tribune.

Petrochemical export revenues in March 2017-18 was  $12 billion – up 25% compared to $9.5 billion a year earlier.

NPC noted that implementing policies to complete the petrochemical value-added chain had helped increase output capacity from 40.6 million tons in 2013 to 54 million tons in 2018.

Giving a breakdown, the company said 20 petrochemical complexes in the city of Mahshahr in the southern Khuzestan Province, sold goods worth $2.5 billion to foreign markets in the nine months. The plants' output stood at 14 million tons in the period.

Production from 16 companies in Pars Special Economic Energy Zone in Asalouyeh reached 18 million tons generating $4.5 billion.

Other petrochemical complexes in Khorasan, Kermanshah, Lorestan, Mahabad and Kurdistan produced a total of 8 million tons in nine months  earning $2 billion.

Total monthly production (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) stood at 4 million tons, of which 1.5 million tons worth $7 million was exported.

NPC said the feedstock supplied to petrochem complexes, namely ethane, rose from 2.7 million tons in 2013 to 4.7 million in 2017 – up 85% over five years.

Rasoul Afsharzadeh, an official with the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company, said earlier ten 10 petrochemical projects worth $9 billion are being built.

NPC wants to expand Iran’s petrochemical footprint under a plan covering investments from West Azarbaijan Province to the central and southern regions off the Persian Gulf coast.

The new ventures would focus on producing propylene and olefins from methanol, a liquid chemical derived from natural gas.

Petrochemical is Iran's most important industry after oil and gas. NPC hopes to lift annual nominal output capacity to more than 120 million tons by 2022, the last year of the Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan.

Iran is home to one of the world's largest crude oil and natural gas reserves, but its petrochemical industry is comparatively underdeveloped.