Petchem projects worth $11.5b to be inaugurated by March 2021: NPC
Petrochemical projects worth $11.5 billion will be inaugurated by the end of the current Iranian year (March 20, 2021), announced a deputy oil minister.
Behzad Mohammadi, who is also the head of the National Petrochemical Company of Iran (NPC), said on Tuesday that the annual production capacity of the petrochemical industry will increase by about 25 million tons, to hit 90 million tons by launching the projects, Shana reported.
Talking on the sidelines of visiting the proposed site for construction of polypropylene park and Bushehr methanol petrochemical projects, he said that the NPC will help companies minimize problems in the shortest time possible.
Noting that some petrochemical complexes are facing storage problems, Mohammadi added that some of the problems with the projects are due to delays in the entry of foreign equipment due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.
According to the official, of the 17 projects in the petrochemical industry that will be put into operation this year, seven projects belong to the Assaluyeh energy zone.
Mohammadi said in September 2019 that the size of investments in the downstream sections of the oil and gas industry, where petrochemicals are produced and marketed, would reach $93 billion by 2025.
Mohammadi said that Iran would increase the number of its petrochemical complexes to 83, from the current 56, by early 2022, adding that both production and the feed used for those complexes would significantly diversify in the coming years.
The official said Iran had invested around $500 million in research and development for manufacturing catalysts used in the refining process, adding that 16 groups of high-tech devices needed in the industry were currently produced domestically, and a group of nine others were expected to be produced domestically by 2022.