Iran’s Jam Petrochemical Plant Exports $145Mln in 6 Months

Speaking with the reporters in Bushehr on Saturday, Ansari said that Jam Petrochemical Company’s main exports during the stated period included polyethylene, butadiene, and liquid gas.

He said that the value of the petrochemical company’s exports in that period – $145mln – showed a 60% rise compared to the same period the previous year.

The value of Iran's annual petrochemical output may reach $40 billion, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on September 14.

For the time being, the value of domestic petrochemical products per year is about $20 billion, he said, hoping that the figure would increase to $40 billion.

In June, the ex-managing director of the National Iranian Petrochemical Company Abdolhossein Bayat said the intensification of US sanctions on Iran's petrochemical industry will not impede exports.

"Despite the sanctions, petrochemical products are being exported to over 65 countries. Iran started diversifying its petrochemical products and finding new markets two years ago," Bayat added.

In May, Bayat said that over the past eight years, the country's annual petrochemical output has increased by 38 million tons. According to him, Iran plans to establish three new petrochemical hubs in the near future which can turn the country into the biggest petrochemical producer in the Middle East.

The output will surpass 75 million tons by the end of the current Iranian calendar year, which ends on March 20, 2014, he noted.

Iran exported about $12 billion worth of petrochemical products in the previous Iranian calendar year, he added. East Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa were the main destinations of Iran's petrochemical products.

In March, Bayat said the country's petrochemical output is projected to hit 100 million tons by 2015.