Deputy of Iran's National Petrochemical Company (INPC) Mohammad Hasan Peyvandi touched upon Saudis’ new plot to sell properties and assets of SABIC (Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation) in order to prevent return of investors to Iran’s petrochemical industry; “the attractions of Iranian petrochemical industry excel those of Saudi Arabia’s SABIC chemical manufacturing company,” he asserted.”
Peyvandi noted that the investment market moves towards more economic attractions commenting “in the post-sanction era, the developmental goals of Iran’s petrochemical industry will be realized by taking advantage of facilities and capacities.”
The official referred to the plan to reach 120 million tons of petchem production capacity by the year 2020 though the figure can reach 180 million by 2025.
“Diversified portfolio of petrochemical feedstock gives Iran the upper hand in the competition with Saudis,” stressed Peyvandi adding “Iran’s feedstock contains methane gas, condensate, LPG and oil while Saudi Arabia’s resources are merely limited to crude oil and gas derived from recoverable oil.”
He went on to maintain that “Saudi Arabia is meeting the feed demand of its petrochemical industries with the support of producing 10 million oil barrels per day; a capacity which will decrease with a cut in oil production.”
INPC vice president recalled that in addition to crude oil, Iran enjoys massive reserves of natural gas; “diversified feedstock marks the most important criteria in development of Iranian petrochemical industry in the post-sanction era.”
“Saudi Arabia has taken measures to construct petro refineries to compensate for the lack though limited feedstock options remains as their Achilles’ heel,” he continued.
Peyvandi further stressed “unlike Saudi Arabia, local experts carry out all tasks in various parts of production and operation and foreign companies are only responsible for generating a portion of the fund.”
He pointed to the completion of value chain of petrochemical and polymer production in Iran concluding “the country’s petrochemical industry possesses enough attractiveness that Saudi Arabia cannot prevent the return of investors to Iran.”
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