Iran and France have reached an agreement to build Iran's first floating liquefied natural gas unit in the Persian Gulf, deputy oil minister said on Thursday.
"Forouzan Oilfield's associated petroleum gas will be converted to LNG to be sold in international markets," Rokneddin Javadi was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
According to Javadi, a consortium of Iranian and French companies will implement the project whose capacity stands at 1 million tons of LNG per annum.
"The FLNG unit will be supplied with Forouzan Oilfield's APG," he added, noting that investment funds to purchase LNG vessels to transfer the natural gas and the FLNG ships to convert the gas will be set up by Iranian and French investors.
However, LNG sales and marketing will be handled by the National Iranian Oil Company.
In the Fourth Five-Year National Development Plan (2005-9), Iran aimed to produce 70 million tons of LNG from the South Pars, North Pars, Ferdowsi and Golshan gas fields by launching six LNG production facilities.
After cancelling Iran's LNG contracts with French Total, Spanish Repsol, Dutch-British Shell and Malaysian Petronas until 2008, Iran practically lost almost all opportunities in LNG industry.
After that in 2008, Iran signed a contract worth $25 billion to develop its gas fields and produce LNG with the Chinese Sinopec, Chinese CEPA, Polish state-owned gas company and Malaysian Petrofield LNG Company.
Iran also had a contract with Linde AG to build a giant LNG plant, but Linde refused to supply the equipments due to sanctions.
