Page 43 - IRANRptMay21

Iran launches new petrochemical facility
Iran’s petrochemical output to ‘reach 100mn tonnes by 2022’
Qeshm, sitting at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, the head of Panahsaz Iran Engineering Company, Gholamreza Zenalpour, reportedly said.
Panahsaz is known for having helped indigenise construction knowhow for gas condensate reserves.
Several years ago, the company took on building cryogenic reserves for gas condensate, which requires storage at ultra-cold temperatures, after foreign companies shunned dealing with Iran under the threat of US sanctions. Zeynalpour said Panahsaz builds reserves at a cost around 40% lower than that typically charged by foreign companies.
At Iran’s giant South Pars gas field, €50mn was saved per each of eight phases in the construction of LPG reserves, he said.
Operations commenced last week at Iran’s integrated Parsian Sepehr Refining Project, which will supply 1.3mn tonnes per year (tpy) of ethane to olefin facilities throughout the country.
Speaking to state-owned energy sector media outlet Shana, Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh, CEO of the Parsian Sepehr Refining Co., said that the facility in Mohr in Fars Province had first been proposed in 2014 and the first letters of credit (L/Cs) were opened by the National Development Fund in late 2016.
He said that the project, which was constructed by Iranians, had been developed using “state-of-the-art technologies by relying on the expertise of local experts”.
The plant is divided into an ethane extraction facility located in Mohr with the Parsian Sepehr refining complex and final ethane separation unit at Assaluyeh, where much of the gas from the offshore supergiant South Pars field is processed.
Zirakchianzadeh said: “The ethane produced in this site will be used for final separation and annual production of 3.3mn tpy of ethane, propane, butane and gas condensate as the main product to be transported to Assaluyeh by an 18-inch (457-mm) pipeline with a length of roughly 63 km.”
He noted that one of the key environmental benefits of the project was the processing of 16mn tpy of methane for use in the city gas distribution network. In early March, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said that ethane recovery units at Bushehr, Bidboland Persian Gulf Refinery and Kangan Petro-Refinery, as well as Parsian Sepehr, would all come on stream during the final month of the last Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, the current one. He added that the NGL 3100 and 3200 projects would also come online by March 2022. Earlier this month, progress on the projects had reached 55% and 75% respectively, with each to capture 500mn cubic metres day of flare gas.
Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has said that Iran's petrochemical production capacity will reach 100mn tonnes/yr by 2022. He was speaking at the IranPlast conference in Tehran.
Iran has more and more relied on hard currency revenues from petrochemical sales abroad since the US adopted a policy of using sanctions to drive down Iranian crude oil exports to as close to zero as possible. The US also aims sanctions at Iranian petrochemical exports, but given the diversity of oil-based and gas-based petrochemical products, the difficulty of tracking the multitude of varied shipments of petrochemicals and the complexity of determining where petrochemical components of finished products derived from—among other challenges—American officials face a daunting task in this area. Zangeneh also reportedly said that Iran's petrochemical income would hit $25bn per year by 2022, adding that plans were under way to further lift the amount to $37bn by 2026, based on an output capacity of around 133mn tonnes per year.
43 IRAN Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com