A subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company recently held talks with officials of Germany’s Butting GmbH in Tehran to expand cooperation in pipeline production.
Hermann Butting, president of the German pipe manufacturer, said the company has a huge capacity for providing Iran with pipes and equipment for drilling, production and transit of crude oil and natural gas, Mehr News Agency reported.
“Butting will supply high-standard pipes for Iran’s oil and gas projects,” he said.
Butting is a leading producer of pipes and steel materials, operating in industrial sectors such as oil and gas, water and wastewater as well as engineering and construction sectors.
The meeting with Butting comes as the Persian Gulf country seeks foreign technology and investment to upgrade and expand its decades-old oil and gas production and distribution facilities.
Following Iran’s historic agreement with six world powers on its nuclear program, the country laid out plans for boosting oil and gas exports and becoming a key energy player in the region.
In particular, Iran’s gas export plans entail cooperation with international contractors. Negotiations with Butting come as the government is studying the feasibility of laying a subsea pipeline through the Persian Gulf to supply natural gas to Oman on the Arabian Peninsula.
Meanwhile, there have been mixed reports on plans to lay thousands of kilometers of pipeline from Iran’s southern gas fields to Europe.
Despite serious doubts over its financial and operational feasibility, gas export to Europe via pipeline could very well become a distinct possibility if Iran sticks to its plans of boosting gas production to 1.2 billion cubic meters a day by 2020.
Butting also faces stiff competition from its European rivals. According to reports, Italy’s Saipem reached an agreement with NIOC to build Iran Gas Trunkline-9–a proposed plan that would carry Iran’s gas from the port city of Asalouyeh to Turkey through a 1,800-kilometer pipeline, and from there to Europe.
Last year, the government started the construction of a 950-kilometer natural gas pipeline that would link South Pars to Sistan-Baluchestan Province in the southeast.
The development project is slated to be completed in two years at an estimated cost of $1.8 billion, another major opportunity for foreign contractors to help Iran implement the project.
Around 34,000 kilometers of pipeline have been laid across Iran with a capacity of distributing up to 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas largely produced in South Pars, Iran’s largest gas field in the Persian Gulf.
