Page 44 - IRANRptNov19

China’s CNPC has withdrawn from Iran’s South Pars gas project says oil minister
Iran’s oil minister says petrochemicals now biggest driver of FX income in face of US sanctions
primary reformer, ammonia production reactor and a CO2 separation tower had been installed during the last month.
Once complete, the Assaluyeh-based facility will have a production capacity of 803,000 tonnes per year of ammonia and 1.28mn tpy of urea and granules. Deputy oil minister Behzad Mohammadi also said this week that 14 petchems projects are being developed as the first phase of the Parsian Energy Intensive Industrial Special Economic Zone (PEIISEZ) in the southern province of Hormuzgan. He said that these will increase the country’s petrochemical output by 15mn tpy at an investment cost of $19bn.
The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has withdrawn from a $5bn deal to help develop Iran's giant South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf, it was announced by Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh on the website of official Iranian energy news agency Shana on October 6. CNPC became the lead investor in plans to expand phase 11 of the project to develop South Pars, the world’s largest gas field, after France’s Total withdrew from the investment in August 2018 citing the threat of incurring US sanctions should it go ahead with plans. Zanganeh added that Iranian company Petropars will "carry out the job" in place of the Chinese investor. Petropars is owned by the Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), which is affiliated with the state’s National Iranian Oil Company.
Total had planned to invest an initial $1bn under its phase 11 contract with Iran, focused on a section of the field near a part known as the South Pars Oil Layer, adjacent to areas of the gasfield under Qatar's control.
Zanganeh also said on October 6 that Iran wants to improve relations and ties with all the countries of the Middle East and suggested the possibility of negotiations with Saudi Arabia on joint projects.
"We want to be friends with all regional countries. Out mutual enemy is outside the Middle East," Zanganeh said, in a clear reference to the US. "I have no problem meeting with Saudi Arabia's oil minister," he added.
The US, supported by Saudi Arabia, is pursuing a policy of throttling Iran’s economy with sanctions in an attempt at forcing Tehran to accept a diminished role in the Middle East with even stricter controls on its nuclear development programme to ensure it remains entirely civilian.
There are conflicting reports over how well Iran’s petrochemicals industry is faring in the face of heavy US sanctions applied to Tehran but on September 22 Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh told an exhibition in the Iranian capital that petrochemicals have become Iran's biggest driver of foreign currency income from exports since Washington’s measures choked the country’s crude sales, according to S&P Global Platts.
"The petrochemical industry stands in the front line of the economic war front," Zanganeh was cited as saying at the opening of the petrochemicals products fair. "Compared to other sectors, this industry plays the biggest role in bringing back the foreign currency income from exports of products."
Iran has plans to nearly double investment in its petrochemicals industry as one way to address losses in oil hit by the sanctions, Behzad Mohammadi, deputy oil minister of petrochemical affairs and managing director of the National Petrochemical Company, reportedly said at the fair.
The country’s investment in petrochemicals—an attractive industry for Iran given the cheap feedstocks that it can process from its plentiful oil and gas reserves—will rise to $93bn by 2025 from $53bn today, Mohammadi said.
The US has since May been attempting to entirely drive Iranian crude oil off world export markets. Iran has turned to the grey market to try to combat its strategy, but in the meantime the country has also been boosting exports of
44​ IRAN Country Report​ November 2019 www.intellinews.com