Argus Media: Historic Iran Deal to Shift LNG and Gas Dynamics

Iran has signed a deal with the P5+1 group — China, Russia, the US, the UK, France and Germany — to curb its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for sanctions relief, including on the natural gas and liquefaction industry.

The deal could impact a number of areas of the LNG industry, both in the medium and long-term. Sanctions on Iran's oil, gas, petrochemicals and shipping sectors will be lifted on 15 December, which will finally allow the country access to liquefaction technology.

"We are ready if a company wants to sign a contract, it depends on them," Iranian state-owned NIGC head of communications Hedayat Omidvar said today. He added that it made no difference which company NIGC signed a contract with and that it would be willing to accept investment in LNG.

Some of Iran's LNG projects have been delayed by around a decade because of sanctions. German industrial gases group Linde may have been providing Iran with liquefaction technology to develop its Iran LNG project prior to the imposition of the sanctions. Individual parts of Iran LNG are 40-90pc complete, according to government sources.

The Iranian government may have paid for all or part of the technology from Linde, but sanctions limited it from being delivered. Linde declined to comment on whether the company has outstanding involvement with Iran but said that should sanctions be lifted it "will have the opportunity to offer products to an interesting market". MORE