Iran plans to increase its share in the global gas trade by launching five LNG projects over the next 3 years managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) Hamidreza Araqi said.
He added that Iran currently exports gas to three neighboring countries including Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey and will start natural gas exports to Iraq in near future.
As revealed in a statement by NIGC, Araqi said that negotiations are underway for exports of natural gas to India, Oman, Kuwait, Turkey (2nd phase) and Iraq (2nd phase) as well.
Araqi noted that Iran is one of the world’s top gas reserves holder with 34 trillion cubic meters.
“Iran’s gas treatment capacity will hit as much as 330 billion cubic meters per annum by 2017 which in turn will raise the capacity for natural gas exports,” he stated.
NIGC has the development of four gas storage projects on the agenda of which two projects have come online so far.
“The country produced 173 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2014,” he said, adding that Iran is currently the world’s fourth largest producer of natural gas after the USA, Russia and Qatar, and with the consumption of 173 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2014, Iran was the world’s fourth-largest gas consumer after USA, Russia and China.
Iran also plans to increase its gas production capacity to 1200 MMcm/d by 2020.
Image: NIGC