TEHRAN - Iran’s Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC) has climbed three places to the 35th position in ICIS Top 100 Chemical Companies for 2019, Mehr news agency reported on Monday.

The latest data released by ICIS, which is the world’s largest petrochemical market information provider, indicates that Iran’s leading petrochemical plant is improving despite the fact that PGPIC is targeted by the U.S. sanctions.

According to the National Petrochemical Company (NPC), the company was ranked 38th in the world in the 2018 ICIS listing. The improvement comes despite the re-imposition of U.S. unilateral sanctions on Iran.

In a statement, PGPIC CEO Jafar Rabiei congratulated his personnel on this remarkable achievement, emphasizing that the U.S. sanctions had no effect on the development of the sector.

The ICIS Top 100 Chemical Companies is a ranking of the world’s largest chemical producers by sales. The listing includes both public and private companies, as well as additional metrics on operating profit, net income, capital expenditures, R&D spending, as well as total assets and the number of employees.

PGPIC is the largest company listed in Tehran Stock Exchange and is the second largest petrochemical company in the Middle East.

Washington imposed new sanctions on Iran’s largest petrochemical holding group in early June, aiming to dry up yet another source of Iran’s revenues in order to boost pressure on the country’s economy.

The U.S. Treasury said in a statement that it had sanctioned the PGPIC holding group’s network of 39 subsidiary petrochemical companies and foreign-based sales agents.

Earlier in April, General Secretary of Iran's Association of Petrochemical Industry Corporation (APIC) had said U.S. sanctions are not going to have any significant impact on Iran’s petrochemical exports.

“The mechanisms of petrochemical exports differ significantly from oil exports and therefore U.S. sanctions will have no impact on the production and export of petrochemicals.” Ahmad Mahdavi Abhari said.

Petrochemical industry is one of the most important pillars of Iran’s economy and one of the main suppliers of foreign currency especially euro for the country.
According to Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the country is currently producing nearly 65 million tons of petrochemical products annually.

EF/MA