Iran plans to revise feedstock prices

New prices of the feedstock consumed by domestic petrochemical plants will be announced in the near future, officials said. Speaking to Shana, Mohammad Hossein Peyvandi said privatizing petrochemical companies under the provisions of Article 44 of the Constitution has caused some challenges for the supply of feedstock and price setting, especially due to the low level of the price of the natural gas being delivered to some petrochemical plants. He added that under the targeted subsidies law the price of feedstock has been set based of 65 percent of FOB prices in the Persian Gulf which will remain unchanged for ten years in order to encourage investment in oil, gas and petrochemical sector; a law which needs transparency because there is no a benchmark for gas exports in Persian Gulf. When we talk about natural gas we should make it clear whether we are talking on rich gas or methane, because for producing urea and methanol you don’t need to enrich gas but you can use methane, Peyvandi told Shana. Having said that Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman are the main exporters of urea and methanol in Persian Gulf region, he said setting an equal price has many advantages. Various proposals have been presented for setting the price of feedstock and we will make the best decision after conducting an all-out study so that it meets the utmost interests of petrochemical companies, NPC official concluded.