Iran is seeking investment to build 25 petrochemical projects, an official at the state-run National Petrochemical Company (NPC) was quoted on Saturday as saying.

The NPC is proposing joint or individual investor participation in building the projects, Farnaz Alavi, NPC's director for planning and development, was quoted as saying by the oil ministry's news website SHANA.

Providing feedstock for five more projects were also being studied, Alavi said, without giving further details.

In July, Alavi told Shana that $32 billion in foreign investment was needed to build 28 petrochemical projects. The projects include factories to produce ammonia and urea, as well as gas-to-olefins (GTO) and gas-to-propylene (GTP) plants.

In July 2015, Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

On Monday, Iran said 29 companies from more than a dozen countries could bid for upstream oil and gas projects using the new, less restrictive Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) model.

(Source: Reuters)