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Iran says gas export to neighbors profitable despite Qatar’s dumping

Business Materials 7 February 2016 21:36 (UTC +04:00)
Iran sees the export of gas profitable even against the backdrop of Qatar’s heavy dumping.
Iran says gas export to neighbors profitable despite Qatar’s dumping

Tehran, Iran, February 7

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Iran sees the export of gas profitable even against the backdrop of Qatar's heavy dumping, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Hamid Reza Araqi said.

"Iran is producing most of its gas from joint fields, therefore any sort of export is beneficial," he stressed, Fars news agency reported February 5.

Qatar has been selling gas at a very low price in Indian and Pakistani markets. The country shares the world's largest gas field the South Pars (aka North Dome) with Iran.

The official said the global gas market is getting more and more complicated, adding that Iran needs to further investigate markets in order to adopt policies as to exporting the product.

The South Pars is estimated to hold about 19% of the world's total gas reserves.

Iran's South Pars gas field produced 95.18 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the first ten month of the current Iranian fiscal year (March 21, 2015-Jan. 21).

Iran expects that the figure to reach 130 bcm by the end of current fiscal year (March. 21, 2016).

The Islamic Republic is producing 420 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) of gas from South Pars, located in southern regions, while the production level is projected to surpass 700 mcm/d by late 2018.

South Pars, divided into 24 development phases, contains 40 trillion cubic meters (tcm) of natural gas.

Regarding the swap of gas with Russia, Araqi said negotiations are still ongoing between the two countries.

No agreement has yet been made, he noted, adding that the operation of swap depends on how the negotiations progress as well as the price of LNG.

CEOs of both Russian companies were in Iran with the a delegation headed by Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak late summer 2015, where the issue of oil and gas swaps was discussed.

Prior to the introduction of sanctions, Iran was an active participant in swap operations, which began in 1997 on the basis of signed contracts.

From 1997 to 2009, total income received by Iran from these swap transactions reached some $880 million.

However, this is first time that Iran is preparing to start gas swap with Russia.

Novak said earlier that Gazprom has offered gas supplies to Iran under a swap arrangement, delivering gas to Iran's northern regions and taking Iranian LNG in the Persian Gulf.

Iran has an LNG plant, developed by 50 percent with 10.5 million tons (or above 14 billion cubic meters natural gas) of production capacity annually, which is expected to become operational by 2019.

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