INTERVIEW: Iran eyes olefins jv with India

12 June 2007 04:43  [Source: ICIS news]

By Nurul Darni

KUALA LUMPUR (ICIS news)--Iran is still keen on forming a joint venture with India to run an olefins project, a senior Iranian company official said late on Monday.

"We have plans for some years now to do a petrochemicals joint venture with India, and yes we are still interested," Hojatollah Ghanimifard, international affairs director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said in an interview at the Asia Oil & Gas Conference.

He didn't give a timeframe as to when talks over such a joint venture will be completed, but said "discussions have been underway."

Indian Oil Corp (IOC) was said to be the likely joint venture candidate, by acquiring a stake in an existing facility. IOC has plans to expand its presence in the petrochemicals business through building large ethylene capacities.

Among some of its projects are a 120,000 tonne/year linear alkylbenzene (LAB) plant in Gujarat and a 550,000 tonne/year paraxylene/purified terephthalic acid (PX-PTA) facility.

Meanwhile, talks between India and Pakistan for a $7bn pipeline to supply Iranian gas to south Asia are set to be completed by end-June, Ghanimifard said.

The plan provides for 60 million cubic metres of gas to be exported daily to Pakistan and India, half for each country, he added.

"The delivery point would be at the Iran-Pakistan border," he said. "As soon as they finish this contract, we can have everything done."

Huge reserves of natural gas put Iran in the second place, next to Russia, with an estimate of proven reserve of 23bn cubic metres.

By: Nurul Darni
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