Munich, Germany based industrial gases and engineering group Linde has reportedly won a contract to perform front-end engineering design (Feed) for an olefin, butadiene, hydrodealkylation and benzene plant being built by Kian Petrochemical Company. Linde has not yet confirmed the deal, which Iran Daily News said was signed recently at a ceremony attended by Marzieh Shahdaei, Iran’s deputy oil minister for petrochemical affairs and head of the National Petrochemical Company (NPC) to which Kian belongs, along with several Linde executives.

The report said the project will be completed in 12 months at a cost of nearly €35 million, financed on credit. Before the imposition of Western sanctions against Iran, Linde was one of the foreign companies most active in Iran, with some of its projects having to be interrupted due to the ban on doing business there. In June of this year, the deputy oil ministry said Iran planned to establish 10 new petrochemical complexes by March 2017.