Delivering speech during a meeting with students and elites of Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Morteza Shahmirzaei added, “We have to get rid of dependence on foreign countries.”

Diversity in an industry’s basket of products is one of the indices for assessing its capabilities, said the CEO of NPC, adding domestic petrochemical sector is now producing 550 grades of products and categorized as one of the strongest industries of the country.

According to him, the country’s annual petrochemical production capacity tops 92 million tons and 70 complexes are now producing petrochemicals.

Iran’s petrochemical industry – products, equipment, and technical know-how – was completely dependent on imports in the pre-revolution era, Shahmirzaei pointed out and continued, “Today, over 85 percent of the petrochemical sector’s needs are met by Iranian companies and manufacturers.”

Unlike to the past, designing, executing, pre-commissioning, commissioning, exploiting, and overhauling are all done now by Iranian experts, he underlined.

He pledged that all catalysts used in the oil industry will be produced domestically by the Petrochemical Research and Technology Company in collaboration with research and knowledge-based companies by the end of the 13th administration’s term.