The managing director of Iran LNG Co., a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company, announced that the Iran LNG project is currently 30 percent complete.
"It is estimated that the project's first sweetening unit will become operational in winter 2011," the Mehr News Agency quoted Ali Kheyrandish as saying on Sunday.
The project will come on stream at the estimated cost of $5.5 million.
Iran has plans underway to produce 70 million tons of liquefied natural gas by 2015, becoming a major supplier to the world markets.
According to the National Iranian Gas Export Company's marketing manager, Alireza Qasemi-Javid, seven LNG production projects are being developed in the country to hit the target.
The Persian LNG project with an annual output of 16.2 million tons, the Pars LNG project with an annual capacity of 10 million tons, the Iran LNG project with an annual capacity of 10.8 million tons, the North Pars with an annual capacity of 20 million tons, the Golshan LNG project with an annual capacity of 10 million tons, and two other projects with a total production capacity of 3 million tons per year are the abovementioned projects.
According to Qasemi-Javid the Persian LNG and Pars LNG projects will become operational in 2014 while North Pars and Golshan projects will come on stream in 2015.
"Asian and European markets will be the destination markets for the produced LNG. We have started our negotiations with countries such as Austria, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea," he concluded.