Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 2
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran will boost its petrochemical production by 1.3 million metric tons by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20).
Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Abbas Sheri Moqaddam said the petrochemical output will increase by 7.1 million metric tons in the next year, Iran's Shana news agency reported Feb. 2.
If the international sanctions on the country's petrochemical and banking sectors are removed, the country's petrochemical output will increase from 60 million metric tons to 100 million metric tons by the end of the sixth five-year development plan (2020), he said.
Sheri Moqaddam said Jan. 20 that Iran plans to increase the number of its petrochemical units to 100 and the value of petrochemical exports to $70 billion over the course of 10 years.
Iran's petrochemical output has exceeded 35 million metric tons since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2014).
Ali Mohammad Basaqzadeh, an official with the National Petrochemical Company, said that the figure was 71 percent of the country's nominal petrochemical capacity.
Previously, Basaqzadeh said that the country's total petrochemical output would reach 42 million metric tons by the end of the current Iranian fiscal year (March 20, 2015), if the petrochemical unites are supplied with needed feedstock.
Edited by CN
