NIOC National Iranian Oil : Iran One Step Forward to Export LNG Via Oman

Alireza Kameli, the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC), has stated that around 30 percent of the gas that Iran plans to export to Oman will be used for producing LNG.

Kameli said based on initial agreements, Iran will export a daily of 28 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas to Oman. Nevertheless, he emphasized that the figure is not final and may increase by the time the two countries finalize their gas export talks.

Iran's Oil Minister, Bijan Zangeneh on Thursday visited Oman to follow up talks on several issues relating to cooperation between the two countries in the area of energy.

Top on the agenda of his visit was a project to pipe Iran's natural gas to Oman.

Based on an early agreement that Iran signed with Oman in 2013, the Persian Gulf sultanate will receive a daily of 28 mcm of gas from Iran per day through a sub-sea pipeline.

Kameli said studies are still underway over the route of the pipeline as well as other technicalities which he said will finish in a year.

The two countries reportedly plan to take Iran's gas to the liquefaction facilities of Oman's Qalhat LNG plant.

Some of supplies in the pipeline would also be used to meet Oman's expanding gas demand.

The Qalhat plant has the capacity to liquefy 10.4 million tons per annum (mta) of LNG. Yet, only 7.9 million tons were exported in 2014 from it to international markets, as the priority was given to meeting domestic gas requirements.

Although Iran is itself considering construction of its own liquefaction plants, making use of the Qalhat facility offers the fastest route to materialize Tehran's LNG export ambitions that had been halted as a result of the sanctions against the country.