Economical Evaluation of Use of Second Hand Machinery in Petrochemical Industry (Case Study: Iranian Petrochemical Projects)

The high cost of purchasing high technology and severe sanctions imposed on Iran over the last decade are the reasons why economical alternatives should be assessed, such as the use of second hand technology. There is evidence to show that in Iran the use of second-hand equipment in the petrochemical industry has become commonplace in recent years. Polypropylene (PP) and Methyl Tertiary-Butyl Ether (MTBE) are produced using second hand machinery purchased from a German company and recently used machinery transferred from an Indian company was utilized in the production line of Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK). In this research the three above-mentioned projects were evaluated to determine whether or not the use of second-hand machinery was economically justifiable. The method of research is descriptive analysis and output data will be estimated with Comfar software. The conclusion is that PP and MTBE projects could be justified from an economic perspective, but the MEK project failed in terms of profitability in the examined years.