Major European chemical manufacturing companies, including BASF, are ready to transfer technology and invest in Iran’s petrochemical industry if the conditions are right, the deputy managing director of National Petrochemical Company (NPC), Mohammad Hassan Peyvandi, told participants at a financial conference in Kish Island.

The oil price slump in world markets, the rise of ethylene and propylene production in China and the US shale oil and gas boom are the biggest challenges the petrochemical industry faces, and Iran remains the only stable and safe Middle Eastern country still attractive for investors, the Iranian Farsi News Agency (FNA) quotes the NPC executive as saying.

Under the sanctions, which are now to be lifted, Peyvandi said Iran had to reduce its petrochemical exports by 5 million t/y during 2011-2013. Plummeting crude oil prices have also slashed the country’s hard-currency revenues.

Iran's petrochemical production capacity stands at 60 million metric t/y, but the country produces only 45million t/y, due to feedstock shortages in petrochemical plants, the executive added, while saying plans are under way to add 60 million t to annual output. This will bring the country’s total petrochemical production capacity to 120 million t/y by the end of the 6th Five-Year Development Plan (2016-2021).

Peyvandi said Iran has defined “dozens of major projects” to revamp its petrochemical industry and dramatically boost output.