TEHRAN – Developing downstream industries in Iran’s petrochemical sector is going to create three times more added value than selling raw materials, a National Petrochemical Company (NPC) board member said.

According to Abdolhossein Bayat, the value of petrochemical product exports stands at $2.7 billion which indicates that $3,000 more revenue has been earned for each ton of petrochemical exports compared to selling raw materials.

Speaking at the International Conference of Export Development in Polymer Industries in Tehran on Tuesday, Bayat said: “We are trying to steer the economy in a direction that is oil-based instead of "oil-dependent", and the development of complementary downstream industries is an example of this principle.”

“We are not going to produce oil as black gold and sell it to others to process it into white gold [petrochemical products], the added value of petrochemical products is much more than black gold [raw oil], so oil must be converted to other products by downstream industries so that all could benefit from it,” he said.

The official noted that in addition to creating more added value, developing downstream industries would create more job opportunities making the economy more resilient in the face of external factors like sanctions.

The petrochemical industry plays a crucial role in Iran’s non-oil economy, as the export of such products is the second-largest source of revenue for the country after crude oil. Petrochemical exports already constitute nearly 33 percent of the country’s non-oil exports.

Facing the restrictions that the unjust U.S. sanctions brought about for the oil industry, its development has not been halted and, with a change in strategies, the Oil Ministry has been distancing itself from crude selling and is moving toward the production of products with more value-added.

One of the major areas for the realization of this goal has been the petrochemical industry, where a wide range of valuable products can be produced from Iran’s vast oil and gas resources.

EF/MA