Implementation work is in full swing on the first phase of the NPC's world-scale ammonia/urea facility at Special Economic/Energy Zone in Assaluyeh. Overall, over 93% physical progress has so far been achieved. The plant will produce 677,000 tonne/year of ammonia and 1.07m tonne/year of urea. It is being developed in an area of 47 hectares by a consortium of Toyo Engineering Corp and Chiyoda Corp of Japan and the Iranian engineering firm Petrochemical Industries Design and Engineering Co. (PIDEC). MW Kellogg will supply the technology for the ammonia plant. The urea plant is based on the Stamicarbon technology while the Hydro Fertilizer technology will be used for the urea granulation facility. The facility is being implemented and will run by an NPC subsidiary Petrochemical Industries Development Management Co. (PIDMCO). The fertilizer complex, one of the largest in the world, will use natural gas from the South Pars Gas Field as feedstock Meanwhile, civil work has started on the second phase of the facility with soil grading and leveling activities. Around 1.1m3 of soil will be removed at this stage. The second phase, which will be executed by the Toyo/Chiyoda/PIDEC consortium, is identical in design and capacities with the first phase.


A third ammonia plant at Razi Petrochemical Co., an NPC subsidiary, is expected to reach commercial production by November 2005. The 677,000 tonne/year plant is being implemented by another NPC subsidiary Petrochemical Industries Development Management Co. (PIDMCO). Petrochemical Industries Design and Engineering Co. (PIDEC) of Iran is the contractor for the provision of detailed engineering and procurement services. The plant will use the Ammonia Casale technology for processing ammonia and the BASF technology for carbon dioxide removal. They are also responsible for the provision of basic engineering and commissioning services. It is wholly owned by NPC and is located at Razi Petrochemical Complex. Work on the project started in August 2002. Razi 3rd ammonia plant will consume 1.9m cubic meters per day of natural gas and 17 tonne/hour of hydrogen-rich gases.

Pars Petrochemical Co. (PPC) has completed the erection of equipment at its C2 recovery and fractionation plant. The last equipment erected was a suction drum that was built locally by Machine Sazi Arak Co. The 116-tonne drum is 17 meters high and has a diameter of 6 meters. It took 73 days to transfer the equipment from the city of Arak, where it was being built, to the site in Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone in Assaluyeh. The C2 recovery and fractionation is over 94% complete and is expected to be commissioned in the next few months. The plant is slated to produce 1,600,000 tonne/year of ethane; 980,000 tonne/year of propane; 570,000 tonne/year of butane; 16,068,000 tonne/year of lean gas and 86,000 tonne/year of C5+. PPC has a styrene monomer plant with an annual capacity of 600,000 tonnes. The plant is about 50% complete. Pars kicked off civil and construction work on its 645,000 tonne/year ethyl benzene plant in September 2004 whose physical progress is around 17%.



South Africa's listed energy and chemical company, Sasol says it is in detailed negotiations with NPC to build a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Iran. Sasol chief executive Pieter Cox said in the company's annual report that Sasol Synfuels International (SSI) and NPC have been involved in discussions with a view to exploring the merits of constructing in a GTL plant Assaluyeh. He said a pre-feasibility study has been completed and a full feasibility study would be carried out in the current financial year ending June, 2005. The plant would be based on Sasol's Fischer-Tropsch slurry phase process. NPC and Sasol Polymer have already a 50-50 joint venture in Arya Sasol Petrochemical which is being developed at the Pars Special Economic/Energy Zone in Assaluyeh. Arya Sasol is expected to be completed in mid-2005. The unit will produce 1,000,000 tonne/year of ethylene, 300,000 tonne/year of medium-density/high-density polyethylene, 300,000 tonne/year of low-density polyethylene, and 90,000 tonne/year of propane and above.


With water run activity completed at Shahid Tondguyan Petrochemical Co.'s (STPC) No. 1 purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant, the plant is now in commissioning stage. The PTA-1 plant is already 99.08% complete. It is slated for commercial production in March 2005. STPC's No. 1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plant is 95.9% complete. PET-1 consists of four parallel lines including polymerization units A, B, C and D. Line A is in commissioning stage while the remaining three lines are in final stages of mechanical completion. Polymerization A unit is planned to be brought into commercial production in January 2005. Polymerization B unit is slated to reach commercial production in March 2005. The remaining two polymerization units are planned to be onstream in May 2005.


The roof of the world largest ethylene tank has been air-raised and mounted at the site of Jam Petrochemical Co. The roof of the tank has a weight of 430 tonnes. The work to raise the roof from the bottom to the top of the tank took about 4 hours. The tank is 26 meters high and 54 meters wide. It has a capacity of 55,000m3 of ethylene. The air-raising work was carried out by local contractor Omid Hafshejan with the inspection done by Nargan and ITI/SGS teams.