Petrochemical industry refers to the production process of chemical products mainly from available hydrocarbons of crude oil or natural gas. The mentioned industry is one of the strategic industries in the countries which are rich in oil and gas reserves like Iran. The total value of Iran’s non-oil exports in 1395 (previous solar year), 20th March 2016 year-end, was amounted about 43,930 million Dollars. As it is shown in the chart below, the share of petrochemical products in non-oil exports was 32% in this period of time.
Source: www.tccim.irThe purpose of this article is the performance review of Iran’s petrochemical industry in the first six-month of 1396 (25th March 2017 to 21st September 2017). The share of main regions from total petrochemical productions, amounts of production and proportion of production relative to capacity in these areas are shown in the charts below. It should be noted that, Iran’s petrochemical products mainly classify in four main groups including methanol, urea, ethylene and ethane.
Source: www.shana.ir Source: www.shana.ir Source: www.shana.irThe trends for TEDPIX(Tehran’s Exchange Dividend and Price Index) and chemical industry index during recent five solar years till the end of Shahrivar 1396(September 2017) are shown in the charts below:
As it is demonstrated in the graphs, the trends of TEDPIX and chemical index have a positive correlation. Oil and natural gas prices besides the demand and supply of chemical products are the main factors which have influenced the chemical index and TEDPIX subsequently. The historical data of returns for Tehran Stock Exchange(TSE) and chemical industry return are shown in the table below.
According to the following table, chemical market value is about one fifth of total market value during recent five years, on average. As a result, this fact can confirm the positive correlation between chemical industry index and TEDPIX which has been mentioned earlier in this article.
In the following, according to www.codal.ir , some details of major companies active in Iran’s petrochemical industry have been summarized based on their first six-month performance in 1396(Solar Year).
Iran Chemical Industries Investment Co.
*Refer to the last fiscal year **Earning Per Share ***Refer to fiscal year ending AzarShazand Petrochemical Co.
Kharg Petrochemical Co.
Zagros Petrochemical Co.
Fanavaran Petrochemical Co.
Marun Petrochemical Co.
Khorasan Petrochemical Co.
Pardis Petrochemical Co.
*Refer to fiscal year ending Shahrivar (sixth month of solar year) 1397Shiraz Petrochemical Co.
*-222 RialsKermanshah Petrochemical Industries Co.
All in all, total petrochemical production of Iran in the first six-month of 1396 was about 26,848.22 thousand tons which includes 5,576.09 million Dollars of exports and 170,406.23 billion Rials of domestic sales. Marun Petrochemical Company with the domestic sales of 16,971,220 million Rials, Nouri Petrochemical Company with the exports of 650,597.04 million Dollars, Bandar Imam Petrochemical Company with the domestic sales amount of 1,004.30 thousand tons, Zagros Petrochemical Company with the export quantity of 1,470.67 thousand tons and Khorasan Petrochemical Company with the first place in proportion of production relative to capacity, are top petrochemical companies with the best performance report in the first six-month of 1396. It is anticipated that, the most petrochemical companies will announce positive adjustment in their performance for the second six-month period of their fiscal year and that is mainly due to some factors which will lead to increase in prices of oil and commodities such as:
- OPEC agreement to extend oil supply cuts until 2018.
- 80% drop in the transportation of oil from the Keystone Canadian pipeline to the United States.
- some factors on supply and demand sides like supply restrictions of Methanol in Asian countries besides reducing inventory stock level of this product.