Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 25
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran has forecasted to join the world's LNG producers in the next two years, Roknoddin Javadi, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), said.
He further added that Iran has no plans for building pipelines to export natural gas to Europe, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on October 25.
For the time being, transferring natural gas to more than 2500 kilometers distance is not technically and economically justified compared to selling LNG, he said.
So, the establishment of LNG production units is currently the most justified way considering the market situation, he noted.
Managing Director of the National Iranian Gas Company Hamid Reza Araqi said on October 3 that Iran is prepared for different scenarios to export gas to Europe.
"Experts believe that natural gas should be turned into LNG. Only in such a way exporting gas to Europe will be justified," Araqi said.
Alireza Kameli, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company, said in August that piping natural gas to Europe is not economically justifiable under the present conditions.
Kameli has emphasized that neighboring states as well as Asian markets are today the prime target of Iran's gas export plans.
Iran plans to increase the raw gas output from the current 700 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) to 1,100 mcm/d in 2018.
With its 34 trillion cubic meters of conventional gas reserves, Iran ranks first in the world.