Moscow – Iran plans to inaugurate 27 new petrochemical complexes by 2022 in an effort to expand and diversify the sector’s production capabilities, according to media reports. The report by the Fars news agency quoted Behzad Mohammadi, the head of the country’s National Petrochemical Company (NPC), which is a subsidiary of Iran’s Oil Ministry as saying “Iran will increase the number of petrochemical complexes up to 83 from the current number of 56 by early 2022.” Mohammadi said Iran planned to expand and diversify both production and the feed used for the complexes in the coming years. He added that government and private investment in the sector would be more than $70 billion in the next two years. On Wednesday, Mohammadi said that the current 56 petrochemical complexes in the country produced about 31 million tons of finished products annually, of which 22.5 million tons were exported, and the rest were consumed domestically. In June, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran’s largest and most profitable petrochemical holding group, Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company, and 39 of its subsidiaries,for allegedly providing support to the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Washington had designated as a terrorist organisation. (Sputnik/NAN)