Published on August 12, 2017

Iran based National Petrochemical Company has signed a deal with Air Liquide to license Air Liquide’s methanol-to-propylene (MTP) technology. According to sources,t Air Liquide will not be involved in the methanol part of the project but will participate in the technology to integrate methanol into the MTP plant. As Iran is one of the major producer of methanol and has been seeking to add value to the product. The new plant is expected to require 1.65 million metric tons/year (MMt/y) of methanol, calculated in terms of 330 days/year of production, to yield 500,000 metric tons/year of propylene. Three commercial plants using the Air Liquide MTP technology are already in operation in China. Each of the plants is designed to produce 475,000 metric tons/year of propylene. Two are operating at Yinchuan City and are owned by Shenhua Ningxia Chemical and the third, owned by Dalian Energy, is based in Inner Mongolia.