TEHRAN April 22(Shana)-- A senior official with the National Petrochemical Company (NPC), Alimohammad Bossaghzadeh, says the company has targeted production of 50 million tons of petrochemicals over the current Iranian calendar year to March 20 2016, up by 6 million tons year-on-year.

In statements to Shana, he said�5 million tons�out of the additional 6mt will come from boosting efficiency at existing petrochemical plants and the other one million tons will be supplied once new projects come on-stream.
He pointed that the country's total petrochemical products output stood at 45.5 million tons last year, up by 4 million tons against a year earlier.

Last year, petrochemical sector deployed 78 percent of its nameplate production capacity while it used just 71 percent of its production capacity a year earlier, he said, predicting that the upward trend will continue this year.
Completion of around 60 partly-completed petrochemical projects with 10 to 90 percent physical progress will raise annual production capacity of petrochemicals to 120 million tons, he said.

Iran�s gas production capacity rose around 100 mcm/d last year. It is expected gas production to go up another 100 mcm per day at the end of this year by developing new phases of South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf waters.
Lack of enough gas as feedstock and a long term formula for pricing feedstock are two main challenges of petrochemical sector in Iran.

By SHANA