Iran is going to sign contracts with the oil majors Shell and Total for the establishment of petrochemical plants in the country, ILNA reported.

The Persian nation is finalizing the negotiations of the technical and financial terms of the agreements with both international firms, according to a statement released by the Managing Director of Iran’s National Petrochemical Company (NPC), Marzieh Shahdaei, as informed by the Financial Tribune.

“We are in the final stage of appraising the framework of a partnership with Total and Shell in the petrochemical sector,” Shahdaei said.

“As per the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Total, the two sides are due to announce their financial and technical estimations six months after the preliminary agreement was signed,” she added.

Total and the oil producing country reached a preliminary agreement in 2017, targeting the construction of three petrochemical plants in Iran, holding a total capacity of 2.2 million tons, with investments up to $2 billion.

Under the terms of the agreement, two plants will be developed to produce a special grade of polyethylene, with total capacity of 500,000 tons per year, and an ethylene production project through cracking of ethane with 1.2 million tons per year.

Furthermore, Shell signed an agreement with NPC in 2016 in order to expand their collaboration in the petrochemical industry.

Shell agreed to invest $350 million in a big petrochemical project in Ibn Sina Petrochemical Complex located in Hamedan Province.

Iran generated 50.61 million tons of petrochemicals in the fiscal year 2016/17, of which 20.3 million tons worth $9.5 billion of the produced output were exported, according to governmental data.

The finalization of the petrochemical projects is expected to raise Iran’s nominal production capacity to 72 million tons per year by the end of the current fiscal year.