IRAN - Petrochemical Sector.

Tehran has a two-phase plan to the year 2010 to raise Iran's petrochemical production to 34 million tons/year, from 13 million t/y at present. According to an official estimate, the expansion would cost $12 billion in hard currency. The government, under moderate President Mohammed Khatami who has been in office since August 1997, hopes foreign companies would become involved in this plan in one way or another. The men in charge of the plan are led by Mohammed Reza Nematzadeh, chairman of the state-owned National Petrochemical Company (NPC) and deputy oil minister, are all pragmatic and eager to attract foreign capital. Nematzadeh was formerly minister of industry and used to be a close aide to Khatami when the latter was minister of culture (see who's who in next week's Review). This is a revised version of a 25-year, five-phase plan for Iran's fiscal 1996-2020 adopted in August 1996 during Rafsanjani's presidency. In the revised version, announced in October 1997, NPC shortened the period to 2010 and divided the whole plan into two phases. But it kept all the 29 projects in the revised plan (see tables overleaf). Most of the projects are export-oriented. They should generate $8 bn in export revenues annually by 2010, compared to $1 bn projected for fiscal 1998/99 which ended on March 20, 1999, and $700m in fiscal 1997/98. The plan should make Iran totally self-sufficient in petrochemicals before long. Iran's petrochemical output now is just over 13m t/y, making it the second biggest producer in the region after Saudi Arabia. Production is projected to reach 16m t/y in fiscal 1999/2000, compared to 7.5m t/y in 1994/95, 9m t/y in 1995/96, and about 10.5m t/y in 1996/97. Production was just 500,000 t/y in 1988.