“Local engineers have carried out the project without the presence of foreign engineers,” ILNA quoted Hossein Salehinia as saying.
However, the Swiss company Casale SA transferred knowhow for the ammonium unit, and Japan's Toyo Engineering Corporation shared knowledge and expertise in urea production, he added.
The plant will get 860 million cubic meters of natural gas as feedstock to produce 660,000 tons of ammonium and one million tons of urea per annum.
Construction of the plant began in 2014. Masjed Soleyman is the first city in Iran to produce oil. The historical city is located in the Zagros Mountains.
Masjed Soleyman Petrochemical Company’s main product will be fertilizer for the domestic and overseas markets.
The main use of ammonia is in the production of fertilizers. It is used directly as a fertilizer and in the production of materials such as ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate, mono ammonium phosphate, diammonium phosphate and urea and other chemical fertilizers.
Iran plans to add almost 8.4 million tons per year to ammonia output by 2026 with the help of 21 new plants. Cost of the new units is estimated at $2 billion.
Urea is mainly used as fertilizer in agriculture and as raw material in other industries. Urea production is expected to rise nearly three times from current level by the end of the Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2017-22).
Urea output is planned to reach 14.7 million tons per annum from 5 million tons now after the launch of nine petrochemical plants.