TEHRAN (PIN) — The first unit of Zagros Petrochemical Complex in southern Iran, the world’s largest methanol plant, is undergoing the final stage and will become operational in the near future.

According to the National Petrochemical Company (NPC), the project has made 99.5 percent of physical progress and the engineering and logistical operations have finished.

The project’s civil and pipe-laying operations had already been carried out, said the company, adding the construction operations started in 2001 and the plant was expected to produce 1.65 million tons of methanol per year after being fed by 1.488 million cubic meters of natural gas annually and two million cubic meters of oxygen per day.

“The project has certain features as an auto-thermal reformer reactor has been applied to break up natural gas by pure oxygen and a cooled reactor gas is used in the methanol production process,” the NPC said.

Zagros Petrochemical Complex Managing Director Mehdi Hamidi told PIN the second methanol unit would be inaugurated in late March 2007 – earlier than the due time.

Several petrochemical projects in southern Iran are expected to come on stream in the next eight months.

The ethylene unit at Zagros, being commissioned at the moment, is to reach annual capacity of 1.6 million tons by the yearend (Iranian year ending March 20, 2007) while the largest aromatic and olefin units at Borzuyeh and Jam respectively will start producing in first half of the next Iranian calendar year.

Urea and ammonia at Ghadir and the 9th Olefin (Arya Sassol) are also among the next year"s projects.

Rejal Petrochemical Complex, which is implementing polypropylene granule project as the first private petrochemical plant in the country, became operational in Mahshahr last December.

The complex is located at Bandar Imam Special Economic Petrochemical Zone in Mahshahr and is to produce 90,000 tons of polypropylene yearly.

The plant will produce 160,000 tons polypropylene in the first phase of its development.

Another goal of the new plant is to produce propylene gas from methanol gas through a new technology.

Propylene is widely used in downstream industries, including textile industries, and one job will be created in return for production of every ton of polypropylene.

It is used for production of moquette fibers, machine-made carpets, bottles and disposable dishes, ropes, crane straps, syringes, and in packaging industry.

Rejal Petrochemical Complex is under construction in a 227,000 square meter land at Bandar Imam Special Economic Petrochemical Zone, of which 127,000 sq. m. has been allocated to the first phase of the project.