The South Pars natural gas field off the coast of Iran needs at least 1,800 miles of new pipeline to accommodate its capacity, a national director said, UPI reported.
Abdol-Hossein Samari, deputy director of the National Iranian Gas Co., said new pipelines will be needed to keep up with the 7.2 billion cubic feet of gas expected from the first five phases of South Pars, Iran's official energy news website Shana reported Tuesday.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said last year getting additional phases of the South Pars gas field online was part of his strategy to overhaul an energy sector crippled by Western economic sanctions.
Iran received a break from some of those sanctions earlier this month when it started implementing the terms of a multilateral nuclear phase down agreement.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports South Pars holds 325 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which represents about a quarter of Iran's total proved natural gas reserves.
Iran has said some of that gas could be used to address energy concerns from neighboring Pakistan though sanctions have impeded that effort.
Samari offered no timeline for South Pars developments.