China's L.N.G. firms eye Iran, and beyond

Monday, January 17, 2011

By Chen Aizhu

Reuters

BEIJING: China may have the technical capability to build a natural gas liquefaction plant within five years, potentially opening the door to vast reserves in Iran where sanctions have kept away Western firms.

A breakthrough for Chinese firms would allow them to tap Iran’s vast gas reserves, the largest in the world outside Russia, as long as they are prepared to brave sanctions that have scared off Western oil majors.

Developing the expertise to super-chill gas for shipment in tankers would also help Chinese firms secure more big ticket international engineering contracts, similar to the $6 billion Cuban refinery expansion and L.N.G. terminal deal scooped by China National Petroleum Corp late last year.

Firms in China, the world’s top energy consumer, already have stakes in major natural gas projects from Curtis Island in Australia to South Texas in the United States where they could deploy home-grown technology.

Two of the country’s trio of oil majors – CNPC and CNOOC – are deploying resources to hone liquefaction technology for commercial scale plants, industry sources close to the firms said.

Read more of the report here.

 

Source: The Daily Star  http://www.dailystar.com.lb/