Page 10 - DMEA Week 11 2023

DMEA FINANCE & INVESTMENT DMEA

Iran recommences work

on abandoned LNG project

IRAN IRAN has recommenced work on a major gas engineering company Linde, which was sup-
liquefaction project that it was forced to aban- posed to provide the liquefaction equipment,
don several years ago due to sanctions, Argus coud not fulfil the task due to the threat of sanc-
reported on March 9, adding that the Iranians tions. Linde was blocked from doing so in both
expected to have it operational as Iran’s first ever the mid-2000s and in the early 2010s.
liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility before the Though US sanctions remain in effect, Iran
Raisi administration’s first term in office ends in has claimed that work on Iran LNG has already
mid-2025. resumed, with the administration attempting to
The project is a two-train 10.8mn tonne/ “accelerate” the work for a project completion
year LNG investment in Assaluyeh in south- within around two years.
ern Bushehr province. Known as the Iran LNG “We have been able to activate the large Iran
project, it is one of three LNG export projects LNG project, which had been abandoned [by
that gas-rich Iran was planning to launch in the the previous government] for more than eight
early 2000s. But all three were shelved because years under the rain and scorching heat,” Iran’s
of international sanctions related to Tehran’s oil minister Javad Owji said this week.
nuclear development programme. Owji was futher cited as saying that the gas
The two other projects were to build the sweetening units of the plant would be “put into
10mn tonne/year Pars LNG and 16.2mn tonne/ operation by early next year”, referring to the
year Persian LNG plants on Iran’s Persian Gulf Persian calendar year that starts on March 21.
coast. They were being led by TotalEnergies How Iran will, to completion, finance the project
and Shell, respectively, but the foreign investors and secure all the required knowhow and tech-
pulled out of the country as the sanctions picture nology is unknown. Iran also faces the difficulty
worsened. that it has very high per capita gas consumption
According to Argus, Pars and Persian LNG despite being the world’s third-largest gas pro-
had only reached the early stages of develop- ducer. The domestic consumption level, marked
ment when they were abandoned, but Iran LNG by runaway growth, has greatly limited gas vol-
had progressed to the point where preparations umes available for export. Of the 256.7bn cubic
to install the liquefaction trains were largely metres of gas that Iran produced in 2021, it used
finished. 241.1bn cubic metres domestically. That left rel-
However, the installation of the trains atively little gas for export to pipeline customers
never occurred because German industrial Turkey and Iraq.™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 11 16•March•2023