Iran and Germany have entered into a €25 million (£19.8 million) contract for the construction of a petrochemicals processing plant in the Middle Eastern country.

According to the Fars national news agency, National Iranian Petrochemical Company (NIPC) and Germany's Uhde expect that the project will be completed within 42 months.

Once the National Iranian Petrochemical Company sand Germany's Uhde comes on stream, it will be capable of producing 350,000 tonnes of dehydrogenated propane on an annual basis.

Uhde GmbH spokesperson Alfred Hoffmann told Fars that the company is also collaborating on a similar project in Egypt.

The announcement follows a number of downstream partnerships between Iran and western companies.

Worth €100 million the biggest of these in recent times involved the construction of three gas conversion plants in Iran.

The deal was signed by German firm Steiner Prematechnik Gastec and was deemed not to have broken sanctions against the country because the downstream facilities would be built in Germany and then sent to the Middle East.

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