Asking for the liquidation of 2,000 billion Urea petrochemicals of Masjid Sulaiman with gas debt

According to Energy Press, gas debt of petrochemicals is one of the biggest challenges of this industry. In the last few months, the gas supply of some petrochemical plants in the country was cut off due to debts. Masjid Suleiman Petrochemical, with a gas debt of 4,500 billion tomans, is one of these debtors that has also experienced a 10-day gas cut. Ehsanullah Mousavi, CEO of Masjid Suleiman Petrochemicals, in an interview with Energy Press regarding the 10-day gas outage of this petrochemical company, stated: Our company had delays in gas supply for years. We had an understanding with the gas company that these arrears should be paid in installments, but for some reason, the gas company had a new policy that these installments should be paid within 2 to 3 days. We give 20% of the urea we produce to the agricultural services sector, and we demanded about 2 thousand billion tomans from the Ministry of Agriculture for this issue, and we decided to clear these 2 thousand billion tomans with the 4 and a half thousand billion tomans we owe for gas.

He continued: The clearing process was prolonged and unfortunately the gas pressure dropped to such an extent that it stopped the production of products of this complex. The stoppage of production that happens due to the reduction of gas causes a lot of damage to the complex. My colleagues took advantage of this gas shortage and when we were engaged in negotiations with the National Gas Company and provincial officials, we took advantage of this opportunity and engaged in repairs in the reactors.

Mousavi added: With the support of the resistance economy headquarters, we were able to create a new schedule for paying part of the arrears. These changes and repairs, which were all done by the expert and zealous young people of Soleimani Mosque in our complex, increased the production capacity from 60% to over 90%. God willing, in the future, with the stabilization of the input feed of integrated gas, which will happen through a new line, we hope to have more than 100% of urea for export.

The managing director of Masjid Sulaiman Petrochemical stated about the amount of gas arrears of this petrochemical company: Last year we had about 4 gas payment arrears, which were accumulated in previous years. From the beginning of March, with the interaction we had with the gas company, we did not allow anything to be added to the arrears of the gas company and we paid the current expenses monthly. At present, about half of those 4 lots have been paid, and 2 lots have been registered with the Ministry of Agriculture and will be cleared soon, and about half a lot remains, which we are going to pay in installments.

Pointing out that the request from the Ministry of Agriculture is the problem of all urea producers, he said: When we gave urea to the Ministry of Agriculture, the amounts were not recorded, after the various meetings we had with the Petrochemical Employers Association and the negotiations with NPC and the bank. We did a center, fortunately, in the last one or two weeks, these cases were recorded. We are one of the 5 urea producers who had this problem. The registration and execution of this issue removed part of the burden of gas demands from our shoulders.