NPC has awarded Germany's Uhde and Iran's Sazeh an engineering and procurement (EP) contract to build a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) complex in Petrochemical Special Economic Zone, in Bandar Imam, Southwest of Iran. The contract, signed on 14 August 2003 at the NPC's headquarters in Tehran, covers provision of license, basic and detailed engineering, supply of equipment, training and technical assistance during construction, commissioning, startup and performance tests.



The facility is planned to produce as main product 570,000 tonne/year of chlorine, of which 160,000 will be used as feedstock for the neighboring Khuzestan, Karoon and Qadir petrochemical complexes and 410,000 tonne/year as feedstock for ethylene dichloride (EDC) and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) plants of the complex. It will also produce 300,000 tonne/year of suspension-grade PVC, 40,000 tonne/year of emulsion-grade PVC, 267,300 tonne/year of EDC, 634,000 tonne/year of caustic soda (100%) and 16,200 tonne/year of sodium hypochlorite. The plant's feedstock includes 1,275,000 tonne/year of solar salt, 237,000 tonne/year of ethylene and 50,000 tonne/year of oxygen. The nearby Fajr Petrochemical Co., an NPC subsidiary, will provide the plant's utilities and oxygen. The complex is expected to be completed in 36 months.





NPC is moving ahead with plans for several new facilities in Bandar Imam and Assaluyeh. The new facilities include a 1,000,000 tonne/year cracker in Petrochemical Special Economic Zone, in Bandar Imam and two olefin projects which will be constructed in South Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone on the Northern coast of the Persian Gulf.
Petrochemical Industries Development Management Co.(PIDMCO), an NPC subsidiary, has said that bid documents are being prepared for the engineering and procurement contract for the projects.



Esfahan Petrochemical Company (EPC)is due shortly to issue invitation-to-bid (ITB) documents to contractors for its 40,000-45,000 tonne/year phthalic anhydride (PA) plant. The plant will be built within the EPC's battery limit, in the city of Esfahan, Esfahan province.
EPC has shortlisted seven local and in ternational engineering companies to submit their techno-economic proposals for the project. The plant is slated to produce PA as final product. It will use orthoxylene as feedstock, which will be sourced internally from EPC.





Shiraz Petrochemical Co. (SPC) is bent to expand its urea output by 20%. In line with this decision, it has recently awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to the Czech Republic company Chemoprojekt. The urea capacity will be brought up from The project will raise SPC's urea output by 20% from the existing 1,500 tonne/day (495,000 tonne/year) to 1,800 tonne/day (594,000 tonne/year). The project will take 24 months to complete and is expected to be completed in 2005.
Stamicarbon, DSM's licensing arm, will provide the technology for the expansion program. Implementation work on the project is expected to begin soon.





NPC has brought an ethoxylate project onstream. Precommissioning activities for the 30,000 tonne/year plant, which is part of NPC's subsidiary Arak Petrochemical Co. (ARPC), started in late May 2003 and the plant began commercial production on 27 July 2003. The plant is capable to produce different ethoxylates including fatty alcohols ethoxylate, fatty acids ethoxylate, nonylphenol ethoxylate and ethylene glycol ethoxylate. The plant, which is a downstream of ARPC's ethylene oxide unit, will use as feedstock ethylene oxide, different kinds of fatty alcohols and acids, ethylene glycol and nonylphenol.
The Italian company Ballestra supplied the plant's technology, basic engineering and parts of its detailed engineering work. Iranian contractors were involved in civil design, remaining portions of detailed engineering, procurement, erection and construction work. The plant's output is destined for local markets.





NPC is constructing a network of pipelines for transferring feedstock and products between petrochemical complexes, tank farms and an export jetty within the Petrochemical Special Economic Zone. The project intends to allow continuous, uninterrupted and safe flow of intermediate and also end products from source complexes to target complexes. The network will also transmit end products to either storage tanks or the export jetty.
NPC is building several projects in the Zone where, in many cases, output or excess capacity from one facility complements the production chain at another. The pipeline will also serve to transfer the feedstock imported from abroad to storage tanks and eventually to the end-user plants. One part of the network will create an ethylene supply linkage between Bandar Imam, Amir Kabir, Marun and Arvand complexes so that they can share their ethylene output to offset any possible shortages. Similarly, another part of the network will allow several complexes to exchange their propylene output so that they can counterbalance their supply and demand.