Page 40 - IRANRptMar21

gold
almost equal to the state budget for one year.
Centrist politician Hossein Marashi lately said during a meeting with Rouhani that the government could keep the country's economy going for at least another year by collecting everyone's FX and gold by issuing "oil shares" that would be redeemed in three years.
The same plan was put forward in 2012 under the Ahmadinejad administration when sanctions against Iran's oil industry began to be enforced. But it was never put into action.
There has to be serious doubt that enough citizens would risk their hard currency and gold savings in oil transaction investments given the deep uncertainties facing the Iranian oil industry in the years ahead.
9.0​ Industry & Sectors 9.1 ​Sector news
9.1.1​ Oil & gas sector news
Iran plans 30mn strategic oil reserve on Qeshm Island
Iran’s petrochemical output to ‘reach 100mn tonnes by 2022’
Iran plans to build a strategic oil reserve with a storage capacity of 30mn barrels on the Strait of Hormuz island of Qeshm as a buffer against the impact of sanctions, the CEO of the Iranian company in charge of the project has told IRNA.
Under the plan, 60 strategic petroleum reserves (SPRs), each with the capacity to store 500,000 barrels, would be built on the arrow-shaped island of 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.
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
40​ IRAN Country Report March 2021 www.intellinews.com