Iran’s Pet-Chem Output Growing despite US Pressures

A new report shows that Iran’s production of chemical and petrochemical items have posted a 1.9 percent increase in the first 10 months of the current local calendar year (March 21, 2019 –January 20, 2020), indicating that Tehran has overpowered Washington’s pressures.

Statistics showed that 45,885,000 tons of petrochemicals were produced from March 21, 2019 to Jan. 20, 2020, showing a 1.9 percent growth in the 10-month period of this year compared with the corresponding period in last year.

In this period, production of polystyrene recorded a 60 percent decline while production of polycarbonate and resin epoxy registered a 48.8 and 11.9 percent slump respectively.

In the meantime, production of rubber styrene butadiene, polypropylene [PP] and polyethylene [PE] recorded a 19, 9.5 and 8.7 percent increase respectively.

Last Saturday, CEO of Petrol Company of Iran Rasoul Najafzadeh said that his country is working on 4 petrochemical parks to accommodate plants and increase the national output of products by 2022.

Najafzadeh said Urmia Melamine, Ilam Polypropylene, Melamine Crystal Park and Lordegan Resin Urea parks are planned to be built in Iran in the near future, adding that Urmia Potassium Sulfate Unit would become operational by March with 400,000 tons/year of production capacity.

He said Urmia Melamine Park was to be launched by the private sector and Petrol Co. would operate as the regulator of the project. The park will entail 6 facilities and would create 940 direct jobs with an investment of 7,400 billion rials.

Furthermore, Ilam Polypropylene Plant will be built with 150,000 tons of installed production capacity and will become operational by 2022.

This project will also entail 6 plants with an investment of 12,000 billion Iranian rials.

In October, the National Petrochemical Company (NPC) of Iran announced that the diversity of petrochemicals produced in Iran is expected to be enhanced by 2025 as the country is planning to realize the sector’s second and third leaps by 2025.

The first leap of the industry took place in 2011 while the second and third leaps are planned to be realized by 2021 and 2025, respectively.

Furthermore, NPC considered feedstock supply to the plants as a priority, adding that the leaps would allow domestic production of key petrochemical data-x-items in the country.