TEHRAN (PIN) – The managing director of Zagros Petrochemical Complex Saturday announced that the plant had exported 320 thousand tons of methanol in the past six months, earning Iran more than 80 million dollars.

Mehdi Hamidi told PIN the complex had also supplied domestic market with 10,500 tons of methanol, valued at over 20 billion rials (2.1 million dollars).
“At present, methanol is sold 250 to 270 dollars per ton at the world market,” said the official.
He added the complex had produced over 370 thousand tons of methanol since it started work.
According to Hamidi, 40 thousand tons of methanol has been stored at Zagros Petrochemical Complex.
“To this end, three tanks with a total 195 thousand cubic foot capacity have been installed in the complex,” said the managing director.
Totally 2.519 million tons of petrochemical products was exported in the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2007).
The export-bound products fetched the country 1.383 billion dollars.
Liquefied gas weighing 800 thousand tons was the main commodity Iran exported during the period.
The value of petrochemicals exported in the first quarter of Iranian year stood at 981 million dollars. Iran Petrochemical Commercial Company (IPCC) exported over 1.7 million tons of different types of petrochemical products to the international markets.
Methanol, ethylene, propylene, butadiene, dichloride ethylene, LAB, and PTA constitute the main basic products the country exports to foreign countries.
Propane, butane, paralyze gasoline, pentane plus, and heavy slice are the export-bound by-products and fuels while benzene, paraxylene, and heavy slice of aromatic are the main aromatic products Iran exports.
Ammoniac, ammonium nitrate, sulfur, and sulfuric acid are categorized in the fertilizer products and light and heavy polyethylene products, melamine crystal, PVC, and PET are the polymeric products that the country is considering exporting.
Iran is among the world’s top producer of urea, ammoniac, methanol, and ethylene.
Japan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), China, India, South Korea, Italy, Singapore, and Taiwan were the main target markets for exporting Iran’s petrochemical products in the previous year.
These countries accounted for 86 and 80 percent of Iran’s export-bound petrochemicals in terms of weight and value respectively.
Of about five million tons of petrochemical products Iran exported from March 21, 2006 to March 20, 2007, over 71 percent was transported to Asia, 21 percent to the Middle East, and about 7 percent to Europe.
At present, Iran is producing 67 kinds of petrochemical products and the variety, due to downstream production process, will be greater.
Iran’s Fifth Five-Year Socioeconomic Development Plan (2010-2015) has planned for increasing the annual petrochemical production from 55 million tons to 158 million tons.
According to the initial estimate, domestic petrochemical output will witness a 33.7 million ton increase during the period.
Based on the plan, 27 projects will become operational through investing 12.325 billion dollars by 2015.
Petrochemical products accounted for the highest share of non-oil goods Iran exported in the past Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2006 to March 20, 2007).