China's Fortune Oil has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Research Center of Petroleum Industry, a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, and a domestic investor on designing and manufacturing a 500-ton liquefied natural gas plant.
Mansour Bazmi, the head of RIPI’s Technology and International Relations Department, and the CEOs of Fortune and the local investor signed the agreement in Tehran at the weekend, NIOC's news portal reported.
According to Bazmi, the MoU is focused on technology transfer and entails the Chinese side to provide the know-how to design and build LNG units and offer engineering services.
"The cooperation can to a great extent help push Oil Ministry's plans on boosting gas exports," he said.
No further details on the location of the prospective plant and the value of investment have been released yet.
Fortune Oil is an independent energy company headquartered in Hong Kong. The company focuses on investments and operations in oil and gas supply, and infrastructure projects.
RIPI, the main research and development arm of the Iranian Oil Ministry, is broadening ties with foreign companies and institutions on technology transfer.
The department signed an agreement with Germany’s Raschig GmbH in November 2017 on transfer of technology to Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemical industries.
The preliminary deal was centered on providing Iran with the know-how to design and build distillation units at refineries and petrochemical plants using Raschig’s equipment.
It has held talks with Delft University of the Netherlands to help boost extraction rate in an oilfield in the southern oil-rich Khuzestan Province.
That followed an agreement between RIPI and France’s IFP Energies Nouvelles last year to collaborate on reservoir studies, boosting extraction from Iran’s oil and gas fields, gas sweetening methods and environmental protection.
