Representative of France's energy giant Total says his company is seeking to strike win-win deals with Iran in order to transfer technical savvy and capital to the OPEC-member crude oil supplier, reported iranian Shana on October 23, 2016.
Eric Quenet, Total's refining and chemical representative in Iran, underlined the vast oil and gas reserves as well as skilled and well-educated manpower in Iran's petrochemical industry.
He said Iran enjoys vast potentialities in upstream and downstream oil and gas sectors and that Iranian petrochemical companies are pretty strong ones, making Iran potent to become a major petrochemical supplier in the region and the world.
Quenet also voiced Total's keenness in investing Iran and joining projects in the country's energy sector. He also noted that money transfer is still a problem in working with Iran which is a heritage of the US-led sanctions on Tehran's nuclear program. «The sanctions have diminished but money transfer is still problematic and difficult for international investors in Iran,» he added.
France’s giant Total will also finalize a $2 billion investment deal with Iran by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2017).
Adel Nejad-Salim, the managing director of Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC), said the French company is going to invest in a downstream olefin project.
«In recent months, Total has assessed petrochemical projects in Iran and reviewed the status of feedstock. Now, their final plan is ready and the contract will be finalized in near future,» the official said.
After the implementation of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran and France’s Total signed an MOU based on which, Total will invest in Iran's petrochemical industry.
Iran had about 63 million tons of installed petrochemical capacity in 2015 and the country plans to increase the figure to 130 million tons by 2020 and 180 million tons in 2025.
