Iran

Iran to use Spain’s LNG terminals for EU exports

8bdc8c83-b676-4609-9470-d0dae2472b54

 

Iran says it has received a proposal from Spain to use its liquefaction facilities to export LNG to Europe. 

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh has told reporters that the proposal was raised during his meeting with the visiting Spanish Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism José Manuel Soria López.

Zangeneh emphasized that discussions between Tehran and Madrid over the same issue will continue in the near future.

Iran was previously pursuing several major LNG projects that included Pars LNG, Persian LNG and Iran LNG.  But they were later abandoned as complications grew – mostly as a result of US-sanctions that prohibit investments of liquefaction enterprises in Iran.

A recent alternative for Iran – albeit less spoken of – is to pipe its natural gas to Oman for liquefaction processing and export the LNG thus obtained to international markets.

Spain has presently turned into a major hub for reloading LNG for re-exports to Europe and elsewhere.

In 2013, Spain reloaded 3.8 bcm of LNG cargo (equivalent to 4% of Russian volumes to Europe) back onto ship for export to Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

Analysts believe that Spain’s proposal – as explained by Zangeneh – may involve the same reloading scheme through which future LNG supplies from Iran will be sent to other markets in Europe and beyond through Spanish regasification terminal.

Zangeneh further emphasized that he had discussed with López a wide range of issues for mutual cooperation in the oil industry, adding that a key demand he had raised was for Madrid to prepare the grounds for the participation of Spanish enterprises in projects to produce oil industry equipment in Iran.

He also said he had told the Spanish minister that plans for Iran investments by foreign companies should also include targeting regional markets.

Back to top button