In PDH/PP plans, we follow the path of methanol producers

According to Energy Press, these days, petrochemical industry managers have turned to PDH/PP projects to complete the value chain and increase profitability. There are many concerns about repeating the story of methanol development in Iran in these projects. In an interview with “Energy Press” regarding the PDH/PP plans, Fariborz Karimai, the deputy official of the Petrochemical Employers’ Association, said: “In the eighties, we witnessed that many permits were given in the methanol issue, and now we are facing a capacity of 14 million methanol; Of course, when this strategy became dominant, the perception was that our development strategy in the petrochemical industry is gas-oriented; This is because a significant amount of gas was supposed to be harvested with the development of investment in South Pars, so it was expected that we would reach a significant amount of gas at this time.

He continued: At that time, one of the ways that was predicted for the alternative path of gas export was methanol. In his own time and according to the predictions regarding the harvest from South Pars, the discussion of methanol and methanol strategy was formed, but with the discussion of sanctions and the exit of large companies from the country and weakness in investment, this did not happen and now we are faced with a problem called high production We are facing methanol which was not predictable at that time.

The deputy official of the Petrochemical Employers Association stated that despite the fact that methanol was justified at that time and there were events that did not reach these goals, he stated: We should be more careful in PDH/PP, but unfortunately we see that PDH/PP licenses are still issued. And we may face a significant volume of these products in a few years.

Referring to a wrong strategy, Karimai said: It seems that it is a mistake to change the development strategy in the petrochemical industry with the crude and semi-crude issue that is currently discussed in the budgets. If we expand the PDH/PP designs and produce a large volume of these products, we will be on the top of the semi-crude product line in a few years.

He added: The Ministry of Oil should plan on this issue. Of course, in the 7th plan, it is predicted that some projects should be revised and their licenses revised.

In the end, the deputy official of the Petrochemical Employers Association mentioned the discussion of grades and said: In the discussion of grades and the development of grades, we should pay attention to two things, one is that the market needs should be formed on these grades, which is the duty of the downstream industries, rather than new demand on the grades. create new ones and the upstream industries produce those grades. Second, the National Petrochemical Industries Company is responsible for the development of this industry, which must plan on these.