Iran says it expects the French energy giant Total to invest as much as $2 billion in its petrochemical industry.
Adel Salimnejad, the managing director of Iran’s Persian Gulf Holding Company, told the domestic media that Total’s investment will be made in an olefin project.
Salimnejad added that a deal to the same effect will be signed with the company before April 2017.
He added that Total had signed a basic agreement with Iran after a nuclear deal that Iran signed with the P5+1 came into effect in January.
The official said Total had voiced its interest in the agreement to invest in Iran’s petrochemical industry.
Salimnejad said the French company had been studying Iran’s petrochemical sector over the past months, adding that it has already picked a project to develop for which a final agreement will be accordingly signed.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Salimnejad emphasized that a second major deal will also be signed with another global energy company within the next few months.
However, he did not name the company on grounds that it has no plans to make its Iran investment plans public until talks are finalized.
Officials in Tehran have already announced that the Islamic Republic will need to increase its production of petrochemical products to as high as 130 million tons per year until 2020. For this to happen, they said, the country will need a collective investment of $52 billion most of which should be made by foreign companies.
What has already paved the way for investment of foreign corporations in Iran’s petrochemical industry is the removal of sanctions against Iran in January that followed the implementation of the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 – the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany.
Based on the deal which was sealed last year, Iran agreed to restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities in return for measures by the P5+1 to remove a series of economic sanctions – including those that barred foreign investments in the country.
