Iran has commenced construction of a major petrochemical facility slated to become one of the largest producers of ethylene in the country.

Construction of the Gachsaran Petrochemical Complex in Iran's Kohkiloyeh-Boyerahmad province began Monday with a launch ceremony attended by numerous officials.

Gholam-Hossein Nejabat, managing director of the National Iranian Petrochemical Company (NIPC), said that the $600 million project will encompass an area of 160 hectares and that the production capacity at the complex when completed will be one million tons of ethylene per year.

The ethylene will be used to feed petrochemical units in Boroujen, Dehdasht, Mamasani and Kazeroun, each of which will receive about 300,000 tons of ethylene a year from the complex.

Nejabat, who is also Iran's deputy minister of oil, estimated that the Gachsaran complex will also produce close to 90,000 tons of propane per year.

"The facility is established along the ethylene transfer pipeline in the west of the country. The unit is Iran's second largest unit after the Jam ethylene production complex and is projected to go online in 2010," he said.

The deputy minister expressed optimism that the project will help create jobs in the region and contribute to the nation's economic development within five years.

The city of Gachsaran, which sits in a major oil-rich region in the south of Iran, boasts a daily output of 750,000 barrels of oil.

BGH/MR/BG