Iran, Oman agree on outlines of constructing gas pipeline

Iran and Oman have signed a renewed document to build a pipeline transferring Iran's natural gas to the Arab state, semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.

The document was signed in the presence of Iranian Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and his Omani counterpart Mohammed bin Hamad al-Ruhmi in Tehran on Tuesday.

"We reached a conclusion on the ways to implement the project by the end of February," Zanganeh said without giving more details.

According to a contract between the two countries in March 2014, Iran would export an annual 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas to neighboring Oman when the pipeline comes on stream.

Under the contract, Iran's gas would be pumped from the southern Iranian province of Hormuzgan to Oman's Sohar port, where it would join Oman's domestic natural gas network.

The accord is a 25-year deal with a value of about 60 billion U.S. dollars.

It is reported that Oman might have some of the imported gas liquefied for export to its neighbors, in addition to the country's own domestic use.

Both sides are still lagging behind the schedule to implement the project.

According to Fars, Iranian companies lack experiences to install pipeline under deep waters, so they need to share international expertise and experiences.

Iran's Ministry of Petroleum announced in November last year that the energy giants, France's Total and the Netherlands' Shell, had joined a fresh round of talks between Iran and Oman for the construction of a sub-sea gas pipeline. Endit