Three main categories of Iranian petrochemical industries, upstream, mid-stream and downstream, exhibit extremely different behavior in terms of their added-value, employment, product diversification and technological development. It is soundly established in ITSR’s previous studies that moving down the petrochemical supply chain, positive impacts of aforementioned variables are reinforced. However, Iranian petrochemical policies have mainly focused on developing upstream projects, generating revenue from raw material exports. In case these raw exports were processed locally by downstream industries, they could have increased the industry’s economic added-value in order of magnitudes. The result is an unbalanced development pattern in the petrochemical industry revolving around raw material export. Imprudent strategic management, deficiencies in project implementation, partial technology transfers and localization, inability in attracting foreign investment and talented human resources are among the high-level challenges that the petrochemical industry has faced in the past fifty years. In executive levels, lack of coordination between the upstream and downstream industries, poor management resulting in under capacity production, and pricing issues for petrochemical plant feeds, have paralyzed the industry in its move toward a balanced development pattern. ITSR’s “Planning for Petrochemical Industries” research project has determined the leverage points for balanced development of the petrochemical industry and will provide solutions for policy making bodies based on this platform.