TEHRAN – Out of 85 types of catalysts used in the country’s petrochemical industry, 22 types with a value of $123 million are now domestically produced, according to a director in Iran’s National Petrochemical Company (NPC).

While elaborating on the current status of Iran’s petrochemical industry, Shahram Rezaei, the NPC investment director, said that 35 million tons of final products are annually produced for the downstream sector and export.

Back in early July, the NPC head had said that Iranian engineers are going to indigenize the knowledge for the production of 72 percent of the catalysts needed in the country’s petrochemical industry by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 2022).

According to Behzad Mohammadi, the country needs $275 million worth of catalysts annually, $200 million of which is domestically supplied.

NPC, in collaboration with domestic research institutes and knowledge-based companies, is currently working seriously on indigenizing the knowledge for the production of the rest of the catalysts needed in the country’s petrochemical industry.

Back in March 2020, the Managing Director of the country’s Petrochemical Research and Technology Company (PRTC) Ali Pajouhan had said NPC was planning to indigenize nine major catalysts used in the petrochemical industry within the next two years.

The official said that NPC had signed 20 contracts with knowledge-based companies for mass production of catalysts and 70 research projects were also underway in this regard.

In early January 2020, NPC held a seminar on the indigenization of petrochemical industry catalysts in Kish Island.

According to the seminar’s Executive Secretary Mohammad-Amin Ebrahimi, the mentioned seminar was aimed to create a common language and synergy between catalyst producers and consumers and also to provide a platform to discuss and evaluate the performance of the native catalysts.

Petrochemical is Iran's most important industry after oil and gas. The National Petrochemical Company hopes to lift output capacity to 120 million tons per annum by 2022.

The petrochemical industry has played a key role in domestic economic growth as it creates value-added and reduces the sale of oil and gas on which the economy has been dependent for decades.

With abundant hydrocarbon reserves and new private sector investments, Iran is working hard to maintain its global status in this key sector and broaden its scope.

MA/MA