TEHRAN, Jan. 20 (MNA) – Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zanganeh said Sun. that the oil industry has the capability to double the country’s petrochemical output capacity to $40 billion.

“We can double the country’s petrochemical output capacity to $40 billion, and this is completely doable,” the Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Sunday while appearing before the Parliament to answer an MP’s questions.

He said the oil ministry back in 1997 when he took the helm could barely produce $1 billion worth of petrochemicals; now, the production has reached $20 billion, he added.

He maintained that about $5.5 billion of the current production capacity is distributed domestically for the purchase of raw materials for petrochemical factories.

Zanganeh further stressed that the status of Iran’s oil technology is incomparable to how it was 20 years ago, saying “at the moment, we can build even the most complex oil platforms, and this progress will definitely continue.”

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