Iran revives long-delayed LNG project despite US sanctions

Iran says it has revived a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) project that delayed for years because of American sanctions on the Iranian petroleum sector.

A subsidiary of the Iranian Oil Ministry said on Tuesday that it had obtained the government permit for an LNG production train that will have an output of 5 million tons per year (t/yr).

The project, dubbed Iran LNG, is one of the three long-delayed LNG projects in Iran. It was in fact a third project approved over the past decade to enable Iran to start exports of natural gas on ships rather than through pipelines.

However, the project, which was initially planned to reach an output target of 10.8 mln t/yr, hit a snag in 2018 when the United States pulled out of an international deal on Iran’s nuclear program and imposed its illegal sanctions on the country.

The sanctions prevented a German supplier from exporting equipment needed in Iran LNG trains despite the fact that all preparations for the project had been completed by early 2017.

A Tuesday report on Oil Ministry news service Shana said that Iran’s Oil Pension Fund, which owns the Iran LNG, had carried out major changes to the management structure of the project over the past 10 months.

SS