Gazprom is willing to cooperate with Iran to develop its gas fields, a high-ranking official of the Russian state-owned gas giant said on Monday.
The official also told IRNA, on condition of anonymity, "Given the gas giant's cutting-edge technological know-how, cooperation with Iran is a win-win deal and both sides will reap the benefit sooner or later."
Stressing that Iran and Russia have the largest proven gas reserves in the world, the official added that developing closer industrial collaboration would benefit both gas-rich states.
According to the expert, Gazprom will mostly focus on exploration and production activities in Iran. Transfer of technical expertise to Iran is also on the agenda.
"Gazprom holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves and its share in the global and Russian gas reserves makes up 17 and 72% respectively. It accounts for 12% and 72% of the global and Russian gas output accordingly," he said.
"At present, the company actively implements large-scale projects aimed at exploiting gas resources of the Yamal Peninsula, Arctic Shelf, Eastern Siberia and the Far East, as well as hydrocarbons exploration and production projects abroad."
Underscoring Iranian engineers' talent in acquiring knowhow, he said, "Introducing advanced technologies to Iranian oil and gas specialists will not be a challenge."
Asked about how long it will take to sell Iran's new hydrocarbon resources in international market, he said, "It is difficult to predict a certain time, yet according to projections it will take at least five years."
"Gazprom is a reliable supplier of gas to Russian and foreign consumers. The company owns the world’s largest gas transmission network—the Unified Gas Supply System of Russia with the total length of over 168,000 kilometers. It sells more than half of overall gas to Russian consumers and exports gas to more than 30 countries within and beyond the former Soviet Union," the Russian official added.
The Russian giant was active in developing Iranian energy projects for a long time, including the development of South Pars phases. Nonetheless, it ceased operations in 2010 following oil and trade sanctions imposed on Tehran.
Storage Cooperation
Iran has started negotiations to build natural gas storage facilities with Russia, but the two sides have yet to reach an agreement, a deputy oil minister revealed on Friday.
According to Hamidreza Araqi, Russians have been offered a complete chain of gas storage operations, including exploration, construction and storage, in Iran.
"Plans to cooperate with Russia on expanding gas storage infrastructure have emerged, as Moscow buys and stores Iranian gas in its underground storage facilities and sells the same gas to Tehran during the cold season."
With two major natural gas storage facilities, Iran has the fifth biggest gas storage capacity in the world.
Gazprom is a global energy company. Its major business lines are geological exploration, production, transportation, storage, processing and sales of gas, gas condensate and oil, sales of gas as a vehicle fuel as well as generation and marketing of heat and electric power.
Gazprom is the only producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas in Russia.
Already the world’s leader in gas production, Gazprom is looking to expand its holdings to LNG, which is becoming a major factor in the worldwide gas trade. Yet Gazprom has only one LNG production plant situated on Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East.
Gazprom has agreed to buy all the LNG from an export plant in Cameroon on Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. The plant is owned by the Anglo-French energy concern Perenco and is being developed by the Norwegian shipping company Golar LNG.
