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Iran to complete Azerbaijan pipeline, revives LNG project
PROJECTS
IRAN is set to complete a pipeline that will enable increased gas flows to Azerbaijan under swap arrangements with Turkmenistan while the government has signed off on the country’s first LNG project.
Mohammad Reza Joulayi, head of dispatch- ing operations at the National Iranian Gas Co. (NIGC) told the Ministry of Petroleum’s (MoP) Shana news agency on August 7 that a 150-km pipeline running from Rasht on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast to a point near the Iranian village of Chelavand on the Gilan Province border with Azerbaijan will be ready for gas transfers within the next few days.
NIGC started the construction of the Rasht-Chelavand pipeline in 2019 with the aim of expanding its gas transfer network to colder regions in the north of Iran, including Arda- bil Province. The project was accelerated last November after Iran signed a gas swap deal with Turkmenistan involving deliveries to Azerbaijan.
The deal allows Iran to receive 5-6mn cubic metres per day of gas from Turkmenistan for use in northeastern localities. Contractually, it is then bound to deliver the same amount of gas to Azerbaijan.
In June, Iran’s oil minister Javad Owji said Tehran had struck agreements with Turkmen
and Azerbaijani officials to double the amount of gas in the swap deal.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Oil Pension Fund – a subsidiary of the MoP – said a day later that it has obtained a permit for a 5mn-tonne-per-year (tpy) liquefaction train as part of the long-de- layed Iran LNG project at Tombak Port.
One of three planned LNG facilities, the $3.3bn, 10.8-mn tpy Iran LNG has been in sta- sis since the resumption of US sanctions in 2018 prevented German partner Linde from deliver- ing the final parts required for exports with the plant itself essentially complete.
This was the second time that the German firm had to depart, with local reports suggesting that the plant was 60% complete before Linde left in 2012, again because of sanctions.
Shana reported that the Oil Pension Fund has made significant changes to the management of the Iran LNG development firm – Iran Liquefied Natural Gas Co. – over the past 10 months. Local engineer MAPNA Group has been contracted for various parts of the project.
The other two LNG projects previously planned by Iran are the 10mn tpy South Pars LNG (in partnership with France’s TotalEner- gies) and the 16.2mn tpy Persian LNG.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 32 12•August•2022