Morteza Shahmirzai made the remarks at a news
conference on the last day of the 27th International Oil, Gas, Refining and
Petrochemical Exhibition in Tehran, where nine contracts and nine memoranda of
cooperation were signed with domestic companies in the petrochemical sector.
He said the launch of the new projects, in
addition to creating sustainable employment, would increase national production
and enable downstream industries to produce value-added and final products from
upstream and intermediate petrochemicals.
Shahmirzai stressed that NPC's policy was to
regulate and control the market of petrochemical products, which has been
seriously pursued in this government. He said that following a memorandum of
understanding signed last year between NPC and industrial towns of the Ministry
of Industry, Mine and Trade, 4.5 trillion rials of capital had been provided
for downstream units through credit sales and they were determined to increase
this amount.
He said that NPC was monitoring and managing the
petrochemical projects and was determined to settle the licenses that had been
issued in previous years but investors had no plans to implement them. He said
that 10 to 15 licenses had been screened out and their feedstock had been freed
for planning new projects.
The CEO of NPC said that 105 petrochemical
projects were currently under way, including Gachsaran, Arta Energy and
Petronad Asia projects that would be launched this year.
Shahmirzai said that this year, production units
were obliged to operate at maximum capacity as there was no feedstock shortage.
He said that this would increase production compared to previous years and meet
the country's foreign exchange needs in addition to domestic demand.
He concluded by saying that in addition to 21
leap projects for completing value chains, new projects were on the agenda and
petrochemical complexes were urged to move towards producing new products and
diversifying their petrochemical baskets by using their existing feedstock.
The 27th International Oil, Gas, Refining and
Petrochemical Exhibition officially opened on Wednesday and ended on Saturday.
The exhibition this year witnessed the presence of 200 foreign companies from
13 countries amid a revival of the oil industry.