Tehran, Iran – Iran is moving forward with the construction of a crucial pipeline that will transfer natural gas to coastal areas in its southeast in preparation for beginning gas exports to Oman, nearly a year after Oman and Iran signed agreements to develop two gas pipelines and an oil field along their maritime border, according to the state-run Iranian news agency IRNA.
The news was also reported by the Iranian Mehr news agency.
Reza Noshadi, who heads the National Iranian Gas Company’s engineering subsidiary, said on Tuesday that the 200-kilometer pipeline from Minab, in southern Iran, to Kuhmobarak, on the Sea of Oman, will boost gas supply to domestic customers in the region while enabling Iran to supply gas to Oman.
Noshadi said that a 120-kilometer section of the pipeline, from Minab to Sirik, is almost 87 percent complete while work on the second section, from Sirik to Kuhmobarak, had started in February.
He said the pipeline will be connected to the seventh leg of Iran’s gas pipeline grid, adding that the gas supply to the pipeline will be provided by South Pars, the world’s largest gas field which is located on the maritime border between Iran and Qatar in the Persian Gulf.
Iran, however, will rely on extra gas supplies from countries like Russia under swap arrangements to be able to launch exports to Oman, Noshadi said, adding that the expansion of gas pipelines to coastal areas in Iran’s southeast will boost the country’s new export capacities.
Iran, Oman deal
In June last year, Oman and Iran signed deals to develop two gas pipelines and an oil field along their maritime border. Two weeks earlier, Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi had visited the sultanate. Raisi’s visit to Oman was his second to a Gulf country since he took office in August 2021.
A deal was also reached about two decades ago to allow Iran to supply Oman with gas, but the project never materialised.
Sanctions on Iran complicated efforts to execute that project, and could also make it difficult to implement the new deal.
Oman has close political and economic ties with Iran and played a mediating role between Tehran and Washington in the build-up to the original nuclear deal in 2015.
The 2015 agreement gave Iran relief from crippling economic sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear activities. But the deal was subsequently revoked by former US president Donald Trump.
