Iran Says Oil, Petrochemicals Investment Hit $10B In Five Months

Oil and petrochemical investment in Iran has reached US$10 billion since the beginning of the Iranian calendar year in March, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported on Tuesday, citing the country’s oil ministry.

By the end of the year, Iran’s government plans to officially launch 17 petrochemical projects, which are expected to produce 100 million tons annually and bring US$25 billion per year, IRNA reports.

Iran also plans to launch by the end of its current calendar year, March 21, 2021, an oil terminal designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz for Iranian oil exports.

Iran says it has already started building an onshore oil pipeline worth US$1.8 billion to a terminal just outside the Strait of Hormuz, the most critical oil chokepoint in the world.

As much as US$700 million of the investment will go to develop the port terminal at Jask, which sits just east of the Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil shipping corridor in the world, which Iran has threatened to close since the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.

Iran aims to complete by March 2021 the long crude oil pipeline from its northwest deep in the Persian Gulf to a southern terminal east of the Strait of Hormuz, in order to export oil by shipping it first onshore to the terminal to bypass the world’s most critical oil chokepoint. The pipeline, which will be 1,100 kilometers (684 miles) long, will be capable of carrying 1 million bpd of crude oil from the Goureh oil terminal in the northwest to the Jask region on the Sea of Oman, without the need to have tankers travel through the Strait of Hormuz.

Last month, Iran said it had signed a total of 13 oil contracts with 14 domestic firms, which will raise the Islamic Republic’s oil production capacity by 185,000 barrels per day.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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