NPC has renewed its call for enhancing cooperation among Middle Eastern petrochemical producers through joint investment in order to avoid unnecessary competition and overcapacity.
Iran's Deputy Petroleum Minister and NPC President Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh told delegates at Middle East Petrochemicals Conference in Doha, Qatar that such cooperation would help create synergies among the region's producers based on the capabilities of each country. "We believe that regional producers in the Middle East need to muster their potentials in order to work together to achieve synergy in their activities. Our conviction is that cooperation and close relationship amongst neighbors in petrochemical sector can yield valuable results for both producers and consumers at global level", Nematzadeh said.
He said extensive cooperation and division of work based on common interests was necessary to realize cooperative interaction among petrochemical producers in the Middle East.
He suggested that regional producers could cooperate in certain areas such as "trade to avoid unnecessary competition; production, to avoid over-capacity and joint-investment to ensure long-run cooperation and to optimize investment".
Nematzadeh offered petrochemical producers in the Middle East to "join hands and combine their potentials to safeguard their interests" inviting them to convene in Tehran to layout an action plan to define the framework of such cooperation. He proposed the following areas of concern as the basis for cooperation:
Trade and price policies, future investment planning, feedstock and production, joint shipping line, utilization and promotion of in-house potentials and joint business association.Nematzadeh said NPC was willing to consider reciprocal investment in Qatar suggesting that a joint commission between Qatar Petroleum (QP) and NPC could be set up to follow up the proposal.
He also briefed the participants on the progress of NPC's development projects, which he said would raise NPC's total output to 39m tonne/year, of which 25m tonne/year would be end products. The projects include five olefins, two methanol, two aromatics and two polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA) projects. In addition to traditional petrochemicals, Nematzadeh said, NPC is closely watching recent process improvement in methane reforming technologies such as development in improved Fischer-Tropsch process for conversion of Gas-to-Liquids (GTL). He added that NPC was also studying production of olefins from methanol (MTO and MTP), use of DME as fuel and progress of fuel cell technology.

            

Nematzadeh said one of the appeals of investing in Iran was the introduction of a recently endorsed Law for Attraction and Protection of Foreign Investment, which ensures and guarantees investments in Iranian industries, notably the petrochemical sector. He also said according to the new Taxation Law, investment in industry enjoys four years of tax exemption. Moreover, exports of all industrial products are exempted from income tax. As the climate improved for joint investment, Nematzadeh said, NPC concluded several ventures including two 300,000 t/y of LDPE and an eighty-thousand Isocyanates projects. Engineering phase for these projects are underway. Meanwhile, Nematzadeh also met with the Qatari Minister of Energy and Industries, HE Al-Attiyah and discussed bilateral ties. Mr. Al-Attiyah said that he supported Nematzadeh's proposal for reciprocal investment in Iran and Qatar. They agreed to follow up the proposal in the near future.

Extensive availability of feedstock sources in Iran, largely from the South Pars, Marun, Tabnak, Pazanan gas fields are opening new horizons for the country's petrochemical industry.
Mohammad Hassan Peyvandi , NPC's director of planning and development told the 8th Middle East Gas Summit in Tehran that "immense potentials for ethane recovery combined with large-scale condensate production provide a unique opportunity for the development of the industry in Iran. He said most of the available gas feed for the petrochemical industry was utilized for producing fertilizers. In his view, however, this trend is going to be changed as NPC has planned to produce ethylene-based petrochemicals primarily using natural gas derivatives such as ethane and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
Based on a large volume of inexpensive gaseous feedstock available for the petrochemical industry, Peyvandi said NPC has planned for a wide range of world-scale petrochemicals, including methanol, ammonia/urea, aromatics and olefins.



Momentum is building for Iran's first annual plastic and rubber exhibition known as Iran Plast 2002. The event, due to take place in December 10-14, 2002 in Tehran has attracted 68 foreign and 175 local companies by late October. Planned to occur every year, Iran Plast is expected to become an important international event as it aims to bring together the downstream petrochemical industries and to become a platform for the interaction of major players in plastic and rubber industries.
Foreign participants are from Germany, Italy, France, Swiss, Greek, Turkey, Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates, Qatar, South Africa, India, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Malaysia.Participants are active in fields such as machinery and equipment, downstream plastic and rubber industries, raw material and technical and engineering services.



The exhibition is being organized by NPC in association with the country's Ministry of Industries and Mines, Ministry of Commerce, Iran's Exports Promotion Center, and a number of leading local automobile-making companies and associations involved in the downstream petrochemical industries.