Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh told Iran’s parliament on January 20 that the country should see the objective of roughly doubling the annual output value of its petrochemical industry to $40bn as “totally doable”, IRNA reported.

There will be plenty of scepticism in response to Zanganeh’s words in the current circumstances. Iran was relying on foreign investment to drive up its petrochemical production rates, but investors from abroad have been exiting the Iranian petrochemical industry in droves given the return of heavy US sanctions targeted at the Islamic Republic’s economy. Specific sanctions against Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemical industries were kickstarted by Washington last November 5.

By mid-2017, when there remained some hope that the Trump administration would stick with the Iran nuclear deal and not reimpose crippling sanctions on Tehran, the Iranians were still attempting to attract $200bn to develop their country’s Bijan Zanganeh industries over the coming five-year period. Those dreams are now in tatters.

France’s Total, when last year abandoning multi-billion-dollar plans to help Iran develop resources in the giant South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, also simultaneously gave up on petrochemical production ambitions in Iran. Early-stage planning work had been started by the French energy maker on investing in petrochemical facilities that would have used gas from South Pars as cheap feedstock.

In October last year, Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company (Hyundai E&C) announced it was halting a $520mn deal with Iran’s Ahdaf Investment Company (AHDAF) to build petrochemicals production installations that were to form the second phase of the Kangan Refining Complex.

Despite the run of bad news, minister Zanganeh reminded MPs that around two decades ago “the country could barely produce $1bn worth of petrochemical products annually”.

He also commended progress in domestic petrol production. Iran was meeting its market demand with a commodity that could be equated to bread for the country, Zanganeh added.