Hamidreza Araghi, Managing Director of National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), touched upon Iran’s plans to develop gas cooperation with Russia in the post-JCPOA era saying “at the time being, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia respectively possess the two largest natural gas reservoirs in the world.”
The official, while recalling that Iran’s policy was to boost collaborations with Russia in gas industry, asserted that an MoU for joint cooperation had been recently inked between NIGC and Gazprom.
“Output capacity of Iran’s natural gas has mounted to about 700 million cubic meters per day though the figure is expected to hit one billion cubic meters upon implementation of new South Pars phases,” noted Araghi calling for a boost in storage and transmission capacities concurrent with the upsurge in gas production.
NIGC head referred to the plan to increase gas transference capacity vie construction of high-pressure gas pipelines and compression facilities inside the country; “one ongoing plan pertains to construction of the ninth nationwide gas pipeline to transport natural gas from south to north of the country.”
The official maintained that Russian could join hands with Iran in launching the 9th pipeline of national gas network commenting “the project can be also carried out through an EPCF (Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Finance) contract in case necessary permits are issued by the government.”
“The volume of required investment for the 9th cross-country gas pipeline is estimated to be approximately 2.5 billion dollars,” said Hamidreza Araghi reiterating that Russians could have partnership in the project though NIGC would give priority to inviting an international tender to this end.
The 9th cross-country gas pipeline is projected to transfer 100 mcm/d of gas towards the north-western borders. The 1,863-kilometers long pipeline has 17 pressure booster stations.
Earlier, Deputy Oil Minister Araghi referred to the inked MoU between NIGC and Russia’s Gazprom and enumerated major axes of cooperation with Russians including construction of pressure booster stations, gas storage plans, technology transfer, implementation of joint projects in neighboring countries in addition to development of joint gas markets.
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