TEHRAN – The head of Iran’s Article 44 Headquarters announced here on Friday that a plan for privatizing the National Petrochemical Company into three holding petrochemical companies in Assaluyeh, Mahshahr, and the mainland has been proposed.

PIN quoted Ali Kardar as saying that offering the shares of the NPC as a single block will lead to a monopoly in the oil industry, so the company will be broken down into three holding companies.
The North Digging Co. (NDP) will be privatized and the public will be able to purchase its shares through the Tehran Stock Exchange by August 21. “Iran’s Privatization Co. and the National Iranian Oil Co. are trying to transfer smaller companies to the private sector,” Kardar was quoted as saying by Press TV.
He also mentioned that “Out of the total of 92 companies, 40 can be entirely transferred to the private sector, while up to 80% of the remaining companies can be offered to the public through the bourse.”
During January 19 to February 17, 2008, 531 companies were approved to be privatized in line with the implementation of Article 44 of the Constitution of which 132 were oil companies.
On top of the government’s agenda was the privatization of nine oil companies, five of which will be privatized by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 2008- March 2009) and the stocks of the remaining four will be offered next year.
Kardar added that the deadline for the companies’ privatization is six years, announcing that the small oil companies like the contractor companies have to be privatized by 2009 and the others have to be privatized by 2014