Iran’s petrochemical sector gets $2.5 billion foreign investment offer

Iran has received an offer for $2.5 billion of investment in its petrochemical sector from a foreign country, Chief Executive of the National Petrochemical Company (NPC) Morteza Shahmirzaei says.

“Amicable countries have many requests to invest in Iran in order to build petrochemical hubs in Makran and Jask. For example, one of the countries has put an investment proposal of $2.5 billion on the table. Unfortunately, due to sanctions, we cannot provide more details,” he said Monday.

Tehran will host the 14th International Iran Petrochemical Forum (IPF) next week. Shahmirzaei said experts and entrepreneurs of the petrochemical industry from 15 countries, including Brazil, Russia, China and several European countries, will attend the event.

Seventy petrochemical plants are currently operational in Iran, churning more than 550 grades of products. The official said ten more facilities will come on stream by the end of the current Iranian year in March 2024.

“The capacity of Iran's petrochemical industry has reached 92 million tonnes, and with the opening of new projects, this capacity will reach 95 million tonnes by the end of the year,” he said.

Petrochemical products are a crucial boon to Iran’s derive to weather draconian US sanctions which mainly aim to dry up the Islamic Republic’s oil exports.

Iranian officials say the wide diversity of petrochemical products and huge international demand for them because of their quality and price make the industry unsanctionable.

Washington imposed its first sanctions on Iran’s petrochemical sector back in June 2019.  It banned purchases of Iranian aromatic, olefin, and synthesis gas, and any of their derivatives, including ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, toluene, xylene, ammonia, methanol, and urea.

The US Treasury Department said in a statement at the time that the sanctions aimed to choke off financing for Iran’s largest and most profitable petrochemical group.

In February, the Biden administration imposed a fresh round of sanctions on several Iranian petrochemical manufacturers or their subsidiaries.

The sanctions also targeted three firms in Malaysia and Singapore over their role in the “production, sale, and shipment of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petrochemicals and petroleum to buyers in Asia.”

ME