Now that a large stretch of Iran’s West Ethylene pipeline has gone into operation (see Plasteurope.com of 20.12.2012), president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 1 January 2013 officially inaugurated a new HDPE complex in Kermanshah. Operated by Kermanshah HDPE, a direct subsidiary of pipeline operator Bakhtar Petrochemical and thus part of state-owned National Petrochemical Company (NPC, Tehran / Iran; www.nipc.net), the line has a nameplate capacity of 300,000 t/y.

The new PE line is fed with ethylene sourced from the pipeline and which originates at the recently commissioned 1.2m t/y cracker operated by Kavian Petrochemical in Assaluyeh, near the “Pars” gas field on the Persian Gulf. The cracker’s second expansion, which will bring on stream another 1.2m t/y, is due to be commissioned in H1 2013. Once the new feedstock capacity is available, additional facilities are due to be started up, too, Iranian oil minister Rostam Qassemi said during the official inauguration at Kermanshah. He added that the West Ethylene pipeline will feed 10 petrochemical complexes with more than 70 production units currently under construction.