Iran exported 19 million tons of petrochemical products in the year to March 19, said deputy oil minister for petrochemical affairs.
Marzieh Shahdaei told that the production capacity of petrochemical products currently stands at 65 million tons and this figure will is expected to 130 million tons by 2020.
Based on the plans for the petrochemical industry, she added, Iran's annual exports of petrochemical products should reach 65 million tons by 2020.
National Petrochemical Company (NPC) welcomes domestic and foreign investment in the petrochemical sector, said Shahdaei, who is also the managing director of NPC.
She added that huge resources of energy, big domestic market, Iran's geopolitical position and a 20-year tax exemption are among the advantages of investment in Iran.
Given the advances in this field, Iran is determined to move forward to produce more value-added products, she said.
Shahdaei cited the light and heavy poly-ethylene project of Lorestan, petchem plants of Orumieh and Mahabad and urea production unit of Marvdasht as the projects recently inaugurated in the petrochemical sector. She added that Entekhab poly-styrene project as well as a sector of West Ethylene Pipeline and Karoun, Kurdestan and Pardis petchem projects will be launched by mid-March 2017.
Meanwhile, Director of Production Control at NPC Alimohammad Bosaqzadeh said on Saturday that Iran has doubled the export of petrochemicals to markets in Europe during March 20-October 21 this year.
He said NPC's strategy is to keep the price of products in line with those in the Middle East and Far East markets so as to reduce fluctuations.
He said Far Eastern countries like China and India are Iran's top petrochemical customers.
Iran is currently exporting petrochemicals to European destinations such as Germany, Hungary and the UK.
The output of Iranian petrochemical plants stood at 28.7 million tons in the seven months to October 21, he added.
