Addressing the opening ceremony of the 15th Iran
Plast International Exhibition here in Tehran on Monday morning, Mr. Owji considered
the role of the petrochemical industry in meeting the country's hard currency needs
very important, and said: "In the difficult conditions of the country,
petrochemical companies were able to funnel $10 billion to the NIMA system over
the first 10 months of the current calendar year, which began on March 21, in
line with the sales of crude oil, gas condensate and natural gas.”
Javad Owji added: "I am proud of what I saw in this
exhibition which has been created with the round-the-clock efforts of
petrochemical industrialists.”
Pointing out that the petrochemical industry has been one
of the great achievements of the Islamic Revolution in every sense of the word,
he said: “The production capacity of the country's petrochemical products at
the beginning of the revolution (1979) was from 1.5 million to 3 million tons
per year, according to various accounts, most being urea and ammonia which were
used for agricultural purposes.”
The Minister of Petroleum stated: "Thanks to the
elites and activists of this industry, in the current year, the petrochemical
industry with a capacity of 90 million tons is active in the country and a
variety of polymers, chemicals, chemical fertilizers, aromatic substances and
hydrocarbons as well as the supply chain of petrochemical industries are being
supplied domestically."
“Iran, with 153 billion barrels of extractable oil and
33,000 billion cubic meters of extractable gas, ranks first in the world in
terms of total hydrocarbon reserves. And in 44 years we have grown and
developed our own industry,” he said.
"In the early years of the revolution we had only Bidboland
gas refinery and the country's gas production capacity was 25 million cubic
meters per day, which today has reached more than one billion cubic meters,”
Mr. Owji went on to add.
Referring to the petrochemical sector and stating that in
the 13th government, good things should happen in this industry, he
said: “By 2027, the production capacity of petrochemical products will reach
140 million tons per year.”
Owji said one of the plans of the National Iranian Oil
Company (NIOC) is the development of gas fields, especially joint fields,
adding that so far and under the 13th Administration, $4.5 billion
worth of contracts have been signed with domestic and foreign companies along
with more than 10 memoranda of understanding in this regard.
"We will not wait
for the outcome of the Vienna talks," he said. “Certainly if the talks
reach fruition, great things will happen as many major companies have emailed
us and have started off their talks for oil and gas projects.”
Owji said that one of the other actions of the Ministry of
Petroleum, which concerns feedstock supply is construction of petro-refining
units, and said: "Unfortunately, our refinery capacity was not noticeable
because no investment was made in it, besides the fact that the Supreme Leader
has emphasized construction of petro-refining units.”
He underlined consideration of construction of a
300,000-barrel petro-refining unit in the budget bill, and said that in
addition to providing fuel and ensuring energy security, petro-refineries also
provide feedstock for the petrochemical industry. “So far 12 contracts have
been inked for building petro-refineries with a total processing capacity of
1.46 million barrels.”