MOSCOW (MRC) -- Four petrochemical projects, all in southwest of Iran, will be funded by Chinese investors, according to a TREND News Agency report.
Chinese companies would be investing EUR470 million in the construction of Lordegan Petrochemical Complex, the report said quoting Iran’s Mehr news agency.
Chinese investors have also pledged to finance Bushehr, Hengam and Gachsaran petrochemical complexes, the report said.
The process of extending credit to Iranian petrochemical projects by the Chinese firms went ahead after the November 24, 2013, interim agreement signed between Iran and the 5+1 group consisting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.
In March this year, Abbas Sheri-Moqaddam, managing director of National Petrochemical Company (NPC), said that around US$ 8 billion worth of foreign investment is required for the development of the country’s petrochemical sector and the NPC is trying to attract investment from foreign investors.
Meanwhile, the NPC is setting up a Petrochemical Development Fund, wherein private investors, banks and other potential investors would be involved. The fund would help finance petrochemical development projects.
The exports of petrochemicals from Iran increased by about 1% year-on-year to USD10.723 billion during the last Iranian calendar year that ended on March 20, 2014. In the new Iranian calendar year that began on March 21, 2014, the country’s petrochemical exports are likely to touch USD12 billion, as per NPC estimates.
We remind that, as MRC wrote before, in April 2014, European countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece resumed imports of petrochemical products from Iran. Iran’s oil and petrochemical exports have increased following some sanctions relief, including the EU and US bans on the country’s petrochemical exports. The ban ease is part of an agreement inked in Geneva last November between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, France, Britain, Russia, and China - plus Germany, under which the six countries agreed to provide Iran with some sanctions relief in exchange for Iran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities during a six-month period. The Geneva deal took effect on January 20.
MRC