Tag Archives: natural gas

Iran, Middle East Analysis//Analyse du Nouveau Moyen Orient, Oil and Gas industry// L'industrie du Pétrole et du Gaz, Oman

Iran & Oman common gas export pipeline project will now change route in order to avoid UAE’s waters

1 Comment

Reuters reported last week that Iran and Oman have agreed to alter the route of an underwater gas pipeline planned to ship Iranian gas to Oman in order to avoid territorial waters of the UAE, Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh , adding that the re-route would not have economic impact on the gas export project.

iran oman map

Français: L’Oman et l’Iran ont pris la décision la semaine dernière de changer le la route d’un pipeline à gaz sous-marin, lors de la planification d’opérations d’exportation  gazière en bloc, pour éviter des eaux contrôlées par les Émirats Arabes unis, le ministre de pétrole de l’Iran a déclaré  mardi après la réunion avec son homologue  omanais à Téhéran.

Le pipeline planifié connecterait les énormes réserves de gaz  de l’Iran avec des consommateurs omanais aussi bien qu’avec les usines de gaz naturel liquéfié (LNG)  en Oman qui pourrait ainsi  réexporter ces réserves  de gaz par la suite

Press TV added to this that Iran  expects to finalize talks over an ambitious project to export natural gas to Oman through a subsea pipeline in early March.  This new meeting is a part of a  general framework of an agreement signed in 2013 to export natural gas to Oman through a pipeline from under the Arabian Gulf seabed.

Based on an agreement signed in 2013, Iran will export 28 million cubic meters of gas to Oman per day for a period of 15 years through a pipeline that will go to the sultanate through the Persian Gulf.

Almost a third of the gas exported by Iran to Oman will be turned into liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the sultanate’s Qalhat plant, and the rest will be consumed domestically.

Iran will accordingly use the LNG produced at Qalhat plant for exports to European and Asian markets. (Press TV)

Companies which are included in this project as France’s Total, Royal/Dutch Shell, South Korea’s Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS), Germany’s Uniper and Japan’s Mitsui attended the bilateral meeting between Oman and Iran.

Nonetheless, the Iran-Oman gas pipeline will be more expensive than initially thought after the two countries agreed to alter the original route plan to avoid passing through UAE waters, reuters reported in the past, quoting an industry source in the know.

Oman is closer to Iran than the rest of the Persian Gulf states since it is separated from them by a rather craggy range of mountains, it also has a significant Baluch population which speak an Iranian language and has also been part of Iran in classical times

Today the Gulf countries, and especially Saudi Arabia, maintain very adverse relations with Iran. Other countries (i.e. Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Bahrain) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) generally follow the Saudi lead when it comes to their relations with Iran and the regional policies. However, Oman is the only country that maintains somewhat friendly relations with Iran, reflecting a exception.

Oman’s cordial relations go back to the 1970s when the Shah regime supported the new Sultan Qaboos against the leftist rebels in Dhofar. Iran also sees Oman as an opening to the international markets. Oman did not support Iran’s regional adversaries as in the Iran-Iraq war and the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. Instead, it chose to mediate between Iran and its rivals in many occasions, the latest of which was the Nuclear agreement in 2015. While being part of the GCC, Oman refuses to transform it into the Gulf Union, it maintains a relatively strong economic and military relations with Iran. In the aftermath of the nuclear deal the relations will be even stronger between Iran and Oman.

Trade between Oman and Iran exceeded $1 billion by the end of October last year, according to  Dr Ali bin Masoud Al Sunaidy, Sultanate’s Minister of Commerce and Industry.(Times of Oman)

Credit Map: Shana.

Links:

  1. Will Fulton and Ariel Farrar-Wellman, “Oman-Iran Foreign Relations,” American Enterprise Institute Iran, Tracker, 21 July 2011, http://www.irantracker.org/foreign-relations/oman-iran-foreign-relations.
  2. Oman and Iran: friends with many benefits, Al-Monitor, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/04/oman-iran-friends-ties-gcc-disapproval-saudi.html

  3. Iran, Oman reaffirm gas export project, change pipeline route to avoid UAE, Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/iran-oman-gas-idUSL5N1FS2ZK.

  4. OMAN’S 2016 GEOPOLITICAL CHESSBOARD : A DISCREET ACTOR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  5. IRAN, OMAN SIGN DEAL TO STUDY SUB-SEA GAS PIPELINE:TIMES OF OMAN

Lebanon - Liban, Oil and Gas industry// L'industrie du Pétrole et du Gaz, Oil, Natural Gas, Exchange Rates Issues

Lebanon ready to Join East Mediterranean Race for Oil and Gas (en/fr)

3 Comments

Reuters reported yesterday, that Lebanon intends to restart its first oil and gas licensing round after a three-year delay, the energy minister said on Thursday, hoping to kick-start the development of a hydrocarbon industry stalled by national political paralysis. Continue reading Lebanon ready to Join East Mediterranean Race for Oil and Gas (en/fr) →

Oil, Natural Gas, Exchange Rates Issues, United States - Etats-Unis/ Imperialism and Rogue States

Series of earthquakes in the US likely triggered by the shale oil & gas industry activity

6 Comments

by  Sid Perkins for Science MagScience Mag

During the past decade or so the oil and gas industry has injected wastewater into deep rocks in eastern Texas, causing Earth’s surface to bulge ever so slightly—and likely triggering a series of tremors there in 2012, a new study suggests. Scientists say the work offers hope that similar analyses of the landscape in other oil- and gas-producing regions could help identify areas at risk of human-caused earthquakes.

The 2012 quakes shook the small town of Timpson, Texas, which lies northeast of Houston near the Louisiana state line. The largest, a 4.8-magnitude quake, and three more magnitude-4 or higher that followed, all originated in a suspicious spot: directly beneath two wells where wastewater generated during oil and gas production in the region is pumped into porous sandstone layers about 1.8 kilometers underground.

Oil and gas producers dispose of their wastewater deep underground for a variety of reasons; sometimes pumping fluid into the reservoir helps boost production, and in other cases it’s a convenient method of getting polluted water out of retention ponds on the surface so that it doesn’t inadvertently spill to pollute rivers, streams, or other sources of drinking water.

Continue reading Series of earthquakes in the US likely triggered by the shale oil & gas industry activity →

Geopolitics :English Articles, Lebanon - Liban, Oil and Gas industry// L'industrie du Pétrole et du Gaz

Lebanon gas potential and the energy disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean


Even if disputes and wars over­shadow offshore gas developments in the Eastern Mediterranean , Lebanon’s gas potential off the coast is on par with the discovery of the commodity in Cyprus, Egypt and Israel, a source close to the Petroleum Administration revealed over the weekend told Daily Star Lebanon.

Companies in the oil and gas business in Lebanon have generally been at a standstill following the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Mikati‘s government on March 22, 2013. The oil and gas sector returned to the spotlight in recent months only to have the curtain soon close again.

According to the Al-Monitor, recent developments in oil and gas fields in Egypt and Cyprus close to the Lebanese maritime border pushed  some of the international companies involved in those discoveries sent representatives to Beirut to persuade officials there to launch gas projects.

A government official who spoke to Al-Monitor said that the United States had relayed a new message to Lebanese officials requesting that they agree to negotiations with Israel, under American auspices, to solve the maritime border dispute. This raised the ire of Lebanese authorities who refuse to negotiate with Israel as they consider it Lebanon’s archenemy.

This is apparently what prompted Lebanese authorities to cease moving forward and wait, which also appears to serve the interests of several parties abroad such as Gulf states that do not want Lebanon to become an oil-producing country .

Major disputes over natural gas developments in the Eastern mediterranean start with Israel which has blocked the development of the East Gaza ma­rine field that was discovered in Pal­estinian Authority waters in 2000.

  • A demarcation treaty was drafted by Cyprus and Lebanon but it has not been ratified by the Lebanese parliament, following a Cypriot-Is­raeli bilateral border accord, which Lebanon considers is in violation of its draft agreement with Cyprus. The conflict has resulted in a disputed zone between Lebanon and Israel.
  • Lebanon and Syria also need to demarcate their EEZ territories. Syria has awarded a Russian firm a concession that straddles northern Lebanese waters.
  • Greek and Turkish Cypriots  are holding negotiations under UN auspices to settle the Cyprus problem and resolve the gas issue between the island’s Greek and Turkish communities.