Baku, Azerbaijan, April 23
By Farhad Daneshvar – Trend:
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has echoed the government’s plans to construct a new oil terminal along the country’s coastal area of the Sea of Oman in the port city of Jask.
"Given the location of Jask, a terminal for exporting oil is planned to be constructed in the region,” IRNA news agency quoted Zanganeh as saying on the sidelines of a ceremony for signing a contract on the construction of a gas pipeline in southeastern Iran.
Under the agreement inked by Defense Minister Amir Hatami and Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the sides will cooperate in extending the country’s gas pipeline into the port city of Chabahar in the southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan.
The contract has envisaged extending a 56-inch branch from the seventh cross-country gas pipeline from the city of Iranshahr into Chabahar.
In addition to delivering gas to Chabahar, the 200-kilometer pipeline is expected to pave the ground for exporting Iran’s gas to Oman. The project is expected to cost about 245 million euro (two trillion tomans) and be completed within three years.
Financial Tribune last year said that the terminal is part of a development plan in the region, which includes the construction of two refineries, a petrochemical complex and oil storage units with a total capacity of 10 million barrels in the first phase and 30 million barrels in the second.
The terminal could ease the load of tanker traffic at Kharg Oil Terminal off the Persian Gulf coast that is responsible for more than 90 percent of Iranian oil exports.