Iran, for the first time, has become a net exporter of gas oil, said Nasser Sajjadi the managing director of Iran’s national oil distribution company (NIOPDC), reported Zawya.

This was in reference to the finalizing of a deal to export diesel fuel to Iraq. He explained that “diesel export has already started”.

Previously Iran had to import diesel fuel. Afghanistan and Pakistan were also purchasers of Iran’s diesel fuel, Iranian officials said.

NIOPDC had announced in July that Iran’s ambition was to export 12 million litres of gas oil (diesel fuel) and 40 million litres of fuel oil on a daily basis this year.

According to Press TV, the managing director of the National Petrochemical Company (NPC) Abbas Sha’rimoqaddam also announced that the Petrochemical Research and Technology Company intends to build a gas-to-propylene (GTP) plant through joint investment with a European bank.

The GTP plant will have a total capacity of 120,000 tonnes a year, he said, and will be built as a joint venture by NPC and the European bank, without actually naming the bank, however.

Ahmad Mahdavi Abhari, secretary of the Association of Petrochemical Industry Corporations (AIPC), added that Iran’s petrochemical industry is capable of attracting $70 billion in both domestic and foreign investments, once sanctions were fully removed.

The key issue, Sha’rimoqaddam noted again, was “the transfer of advanced technical processes and know-how, over which we were facing restrictions as a result of sanctions.”