TEHRAN: Presently, exporting petrochemical products to Asia and Europe is the first priority, said Mehdi Sharifi Niknafs, managing director of Iran’s Petrochemical Commercial Company.
The company aims to restore its Asian and European markets and at the same time, enter new ones.
“We have no plan to export petrochemical products to the U.S. and have not received requests from the country,” he said, adding, “Of course, the way we look at Latin American markets is a bit different and they continue to be rich target markets for our various petrochemical products.”
The value of Iran’s petrochemical exports is forecast to rise by 20-25 percent during 1-1.5 year after the West-led sanctions are lifted from the country, Sharifi Niknafs said earlier in August.
He added that lifting of sanctions will remove banking, insurance and transportation barriers as well as brokers from Iran’s petrochemical exports which will reduce export costs noticeably.
The official said sanctions removal will also bring foreign finance to expedite completion of Iran’s semi-finished petrochemical projects.
Based on official statistics, Iran has a capacity to produce 60 million tons of petrochemical per year. The country’s annual petrochemical export is currently about 17 million tons.
