Iran inks $18 billion in oil deals since March

TEHRAN,Dec.13 (MNA)--Iran signed up to $18 billion worth of petrochemical deals since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2011), the National Petrochemical Company’s (NPC) managing director said. During the past 46 years, some 46 billion dollars has been invested in this sector to create the capacity of producing over 51 million tons of petrochemical products, while 50 billion dollars will be invested during the fifth five-year development plan (2015-2020) to create the same capacity, the NPC head Abdolhossein Bayat added. “By the end of the fifth development plan (2015), the country’s oil production must increase to 5.2 million barrels per day (bpd) and this should happen from the country’s joint fields,”Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said in August. The petrochemical industry accounts for 2 percent of the gross domestic production, 44 percent of the non-oil exports and 55 percent of the industrial exports, he said, adding that the country earned 12 billion dollars from exporting petrochemical products last year.