Iran, Norway agree on petrochemical cooperation

The agreement was signed on Sunday by Managing Director of PRTC Esmaeil Qanbari and Director of Business Development of Norner Company Lars H. Evensen on the sidelines of the 13th International Conference on Iran Petrochemical Industry.

In the signing ceremony, Qanbari said that to promote downstream and supplementary industries of petrochemical industry in Iran and compensating shortages of propylene in the next 10 years, National Petrochemical Company (NPC) function would be propylene-oriented.

He reminded that past year polypropylene unit with capacity of 2,400 tons was launched in Arak and for the first time its catalyst was successfully tested with indigenous know-how.

Qanbari said nominal capacity of polypropylene production in Iran was close to 965,000 tons until 1392 (2013), and added that increasing the capacity to 4 million tons in the sixth development plan and 8 million tons until the end of seventh development plan indicates the necessity to achieve indigenous know-how to produce this material for future plans.

He said that duration for the signed agreement with Norwegian company is 10 years.

Low investment, high employment and more value-added are among the most important peculiarities of downstream or supplementary sectors of petrochemical industry, which is so important for investors and industrial policy-makers.

Petrochemical industry production capacity in Iran is 62 million tons annually which is to increase to 72 million tons until the end of this year considering post-JCPOA era.

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