TEHRAN – Iranian exports of petrochemical products increased by 13 percent in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) compared to the preceding year, general secretary of Iran's Association of Petrochemical Industry Corporation (APIC) said.

According to Ahmad Mahdavi Abhari, last year 11 new petrochemical complexes went operational across Iran which increased the country’s petrochemical output by about 10 percent.

Abhari noted that despite the obstacles created by the U.S. sanctions, the Islamic Republic does not have any problems for exporting petrochemical products, saying: "Based on a predetermined procedure, the transfer of petrochemical revenues into the country is underway."

He further mentioned the continuous development of the country’s petrochemical industry and said: “This year too, we will witness a great surge in the production and export of petrochemical products in the country.”

Iran has been highly developing its petrochemical industry over the past few years as the development of the giant South Pars gas field (Iran shares with Qatar in the Persian Gulf) has been supplying more feedstock to the petrochemical units.

According to the National Petrochemical Company (NPC), the second leap of the petrochemical industry is going to be realized in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21) to boost the country’s annual petrochemical revenues up to $25 billion.

The third leap of the industry, which is aimed to increase the revenues from the mentioned sector to $37 billion, is also planned to take place in the Iranian calendar year 1404 (begins in March 2025).

According to President Hassan Rouhani, the country’s petrochemical production capacity has nearly doubled over the past eight years.

“The petrochemical production capacity is expected to reach 100 million tons in the current year and this shows that a lot of work has been done. the revenues from the petrochemical industry have helped us during the years of economic war and sanctions,” Rouhani said earlier.

The president noted that 17 petrochemical projects worth about $12 billion were planned to be inaugurated across the country to realize the second leap of the industry, of which 12 were put into operation in the previous year and the rest will go operation this year.

EF/MA