Iran scales down Olefins No 12 project

Tehran: Iran's National Petrochemical Co (NPC) is planning to scale down planned capacity at its Olefins No 12 project at Assalouyeh. Reports suggest that the company is also planning to modify its feedstock and downstream slate as well.

The company is also looking to produce 600,000 tonnes per year of ethylene and 350,000 tonnes per year of propylene, media reports quoted Mohammad Hassan Peyvandi, NPC's director for planning and development, as saying. He was speaking on the sidelines of the ICIS World Polymers Conference.

The project, which has a planned capacity to produce 1.8 million tonnes per year of ethylene and 900,000 tonnes per year of propylene as well as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), is due to go live sometime in 2013. However, the revised plans preclude any polymer production and, instead, will have a plan to use ethylene and propylene to feed other derivative projects.

Peyvandi  reportedly cited declining margins for polymers as the reason for reduction in capacity, in addition to a diversified product slate. The company would also use only condensate feedstock for the cracker, against a mix of condensate and heavy-end feed. The condensate would be procured from the South Pars gas field in southern Iran.

Peyvandi cited ''better economics'' in heavy-end oil products as the reason for securing a million tonnes per annum of heavy-end oil products from the cracker instead of using the heavy-end as feedstock. He said the project would also include aromatics production, and might produce around 700,000 tonnes per year of paraxylene, 100,000 tons per annum of orthoxylene and around 300,000 tonnes per year of benzene.