TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday inaugurated three major petrochemical projects worth $1.304 billion in southwestern Iran through a video conference.

Inaugurated in Khuzestan and Bushehr provinces, the mentioned projects are going to create job opportunities for over 2,454 people, IRNA reported.

As reported, the new petrochemical units, namely Masjed Soleiman Urea and Ammonia unit, Assaluyeh Exir Halale Petrochemical Plant, and Sabalan Methanol unit, will add a total of 3.5 million tons to the country’s annual petrochemical production capacity.

The said projects have been put into operation following a series of inaugurations in the country’s petrochemical industry as the government is taking serious measures for realizing the second leap of the industry.

Some 17 petrochemical projects worth about $12 billion were planned to be inaugurated across the country in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) to realize the second leap of the industry, 12 of which were put into operation and the rest were postponed into the current year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The petrochemical industry plays a crucial role in Iran’s non-oil economy, as the petrochemical export is the second-largest source of revenue for the country after crude oil. Petrochemical exports already constitute nearly 33 percent of the country’s non-oil exports.

Iran has been highly developing this sector over the recent 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.

Also, the U.S. sanctioning Iran’s oil exports has encouraged more development of the petrochemical industry to boost exports from this sector.

Now, pursuing the second and third leap in this sector, the country aims to boost its annual petrochemical production capacity to 100 million tons in the current Iranian calendar year (March 2021-March 2022) from the current 66 million tons.

While the leap in the petrochemical output is a big measure to boost Iran’s non-oil exports, it also plays a very significant role in the realization of the current Iranian calendar year’s motto, which is “Production: Support and Elimination of Obstacles”.

Balanced development of the petrochemical industry has also been of particular interest among the National Petrochemical Company (NPC) strategies for the current year since the development of downstream industries will prevent the sale of raw materials and result in the production of products with higher added value.

Domestic equipment, licenses, and technological knowledge have been used in most of the underway and completed projects in this industry.

EF/MA