An Iranian official says the export of some petrochemical products has considerably fallen due to natural gas shortage since the beginning of new Iranian year.

Secretary General of the Petrochemical Industry Employers Association, Ahmad Mahdavi Abhari, told ILNA news agency that the export of urea and methanol has decreased by 2.5 million tons since March 21, due to lack of natural gas needed at plants.

He said this will lead to a $700 million drop in exports because compared to last year the figure has decreased by 20-25%.

Iran has been facing a serious gas shortage since last year, and even the volume of country’s gas shortage reached 300 million cubic meters per day in winter.

The Islamic Republic’s petrochemical sector needs natural gas to operate, and producers sustain losses because of shortages.

The other export-oriented sector, the steel industry, needs a lot of electricity generated by gas-based power plants and some plants have been intermittently idle in the past months.

Iran has the second largest natural gas reserves in the world, holding more than 17 percent of global discovered gas fields. However, without foreign investment and technology, it will become a natural gas importer while the US sanctions do not allow Western companies to have any business dealings with the country.

Iran’s gas production is gradually falling as natural pressure in its South Pars fields is dropping and it needs technological help from Western energy giants to build larger platforms with stronger pumps to get the gas out. This in turn needs either partnership deals or Iranian cash investments to the tune of $80 billion.