BASF, Linde mull massive Iran investment

German chemical company BASF is weighing an investment of $4 billion in Iran, the daily Handelsblatt has reported, citing industry sources.  

Together with an Iranian company, BASF wants to build new petrochemical plants near Iran’s hub of petrochemical activities and gas industry in Assaluyeh, the paper said.

BASF signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Iranian Oil Company about future cooperation in April.

The German company has been in business with Iran since 1959. In addition to a sales office in Tehran, BASF maintains a polyurethane system house for production of plastics northwest of the capital, but its operation is currently very limited.

However, BASF is not the only group that was negotiating with the Iranians, the paper said.

Industry sources said Munich gas manufacturer Linde was interested in investment worth billions of dollars in the Iranian petrochemical industry jointly with the Japanese Mitsui Group.

According to Handelsblatt, Linde CEO Wolfgang Büchele has been in "pre-business talks" with the Iranians for some time. Neither BASF nor Linde commented on the report, the paper said.

Iran wants to use its huge reserves of raw materials to establish itself as the largest supplier of basic chemicals in the Persian Gulf.

"We will continue to expand our petrochemical capacity in the next decade from 60 million to 160 million tons per year," Marzieh Shahdaei, head of the National Petrochemical Company of Iran (NPC), told the newspaper.

Last week, Shahdaei told a conference in Berlin that Iran needed $55 billion for 60 projects in the petrochemicals sector over a period of 10 years. 

The country cannot raise this sum itself and therefore seeks investors mainly from Europe, she said. In February, Shahdaei had said Linde and Mitsui Chemicals planned $4 billion of investment in Iranian petrochemical projects.

BASF and Linde sent their executives with German Minister of Economy Sigmar Gabriel to Iran in July to discuss investment and transfer of technology.

Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh has said the lifting of sanctions would enable Iran to fulfill its 20-year vision plan, including its target to produce $70 billion of petrochemicals a year at current prices.

Companies from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan and even the US have indicated readiness to participate in Iran’s petrochemical projects, according to officials.

The petrochemical industry is the biggest source of foreign earnings for Iran after oil. Last year, Iranian companies exported about $12.8 billion of petrochemical products.

Several petrochemical companies are listed on Iran’s main bourse, offering a variety of commodities for trade.

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