TEHRAN: Iran says it sets the gas feedstock price for petrochemical plants at a level that raise the profit margin of them to 25-30 percent. National Petrochemical Company CEO Marzieh Shahdaei said Feb.8 that excepting the petrochemicals which use liquid feedstock, others have at least 25 percent profit margin, Shana reported. Before, the Deputy Oil Minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia also told Trend in August 2016 that Iran’s petrochemical projects are the most attractive sector for foreign investors with above 25 percent profit margin. According to official documents, prepared by Oil Ministry and seen by Trend, Iran’s petrochemical plants’ net profit reached $4.514 billion during last fiscal year, ended March 20, 2016.
Iran produced about 49.097 million metric tons of petrochemicals in 2016, about 9.4 percent more than 2015. Some of Iranian petrochemical plants with uses only liquid feedstock have very low profit margin or operating at loose. Despite the growth of actual output, Iran’s petrochemical plants performed at just 74 percent of nominal capacity on average, which stood at 62.225 million tons per year as of January 1, 2017. The figure indicates a 7 percent growth compared to the same date last year. According to statistics, the feedstock shortage – chiefly ethane and methane – accounted for about 44 percent of Iran’s idle petrochemical production capacity. About 22 petrochemical plants worked at or above 80 percent capacity; 10 plants worked at above 50% and the rest were running below half of capacity. Iran has 53 petrochemical plants.
