Iran has halted the export of all petrochemical products until further notice. Citing an April 6 airstrike on two petrochemical plants in the South Pars region, Iran's director of downstream-petrochemical industries development has announced that all petrochemical exports will be suspended indefinitely.
The petrochemical sector exports about 29 million tons of products, earning about $13 billion per year, making it Iran's largest source of non-oil revenue. These products include plastics, polymers, and agricultural chemicals.
While the South Pars gas is important at home, the petrochemical plant is a source of export earnings. The gas is used to make basic chemical building blocks like ethylene, propylene, methanol, ammonia and urea used to make other products such as plastic pipe, packaging, clothing, household products or fertilizer. Among the largest importers are Turkey, China, India and Southeast Asian countries, according to Iranian mining and petrochemical export company Irminex. Iran’s petrochemical industry gets a competitive advantage from low raw material costs due to its access to South Pars gas.
On April 6, Israel's airstrikes on Iran's South Pars gas fields and petrochemical complex caused damage that is only now becoming apparent. At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "Today we destroyed the largest petrochemical plant in Iran, in other words, we are systematically destroying the money machine of the Revolutionary Guards.” The statement of destruction sounded like political hyperbole at the time.
Iran was an economic basket case prior to the war. First, the imposition of the crude oil blockade that started Monday (CENTCOM Starts the Iranian Blockade Monday - Here Are the Rules and What to Look For – RedState) and now this has reduced Iran's income to what it can earn from its all-sheep-all-the-time OnlyFans channel.
For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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