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GLNG MIDDLE EAST GLNG

Iran recommences work on

abandoned LNG project

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

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