Ba
ku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 27
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
The Iranian National Gas Company has made a public call for investors to launch small to medium-size LNG (liquefied natural gas) storage facilities for public consumption.
The company's Gas Supplement Director Naser Ebrahimi said that the facilities are meant to be launched as a way to diversify domestic energy sources and prevent low pressure of the supplement network in peak consumption periods, Iran's Mehr news agency reported Jan. 27.
Accordingly, the Iranian National Gas Company guarantees to provide the storage units with LNG during the first eight months of the Iranian calendar year (March 21 to November 21), he explained.
The official further said that while the investing party will decide the size of their storage facility, the location where the facility is going to be built is to be decided jointly with the National Gas Company.
"Also, the cost of stretching the gas pipeline to the facility will have to be covered by the investor," he added.
Ebrahimi said that the facility's storage volume is to be decided by the investor, but added that each investor "is required to sell a minimum of 50% of its product through the Energy Exchange."
According to the official, the price of the gas delivered to the small to mid-size facilities will stay at $3.3 per million Btu (British thermal unit) up to March 20, 2022; and will be set at $2.8 below the average price for every million Btu of LNG sold at the Energy Exchange.
He noted that the investors have to take care of technical and environmental issues related to the facilities they establish.
As a way to find consumption for the country's abundant reserves, the Iranian Oil Ministry has frequently voiced eagerness for exporting LNG, of which the country has large reserves, more than 18 billion barrels of LNG sources in the South Pars field alone.
But as the country is also coping with economic sanctions, and as international oil prices have fallen drastically, the Iranian National Oil Company keeps an eye on domestic consumption as another source of revenue.
On Jan. 23, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that falling oil prices would not have an impact on the construction of mini LNG refineries in South Pars, showing determination in carrying out the plans the country has made on its LNG resources.
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