Philippines plans LNG plant in Iran

The Philippines plans to build an LNG plant in Iran and source feedstock from the country for a new 400,000-bpd refinery, the head of the Southeast Asian country’s NOC said on Saturday.

Pedro Aquino, president of the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), described the plans during a visit to Tehran.

The news follow’s last week’s signing of an MoU between PNOC’s exploration offshoot, PNOC EP, and the National Iranian Oil Company for a study of the Pazanan and Darquain fields.

PNOC is among the disclosed members of the 11-company Pergas consortium, which was among the first international entities to strike a deal for participation in Iran’s oil and gas fields post-sanctions.

Pergas signed a non-disclosure agreement with the National Iranian South Oil Company in November 2016 for studies at the Karanj and Shadegan fields.

In early March, Masoud Besharati, head of the Tehran office for Pergas, said PNOC was seeking involvement in an Iranian LNG project “as part of” the consortium. It was unclear whether the company had a mechanism through which it could pursue projects independently but within its role in the group. Besharati said the company was in talks with NIOC on building an LNG plant with a 6-million-tpy capacity.

Aquino said the refinery is designed to process a variety of Iranian crude and is scheduled for completion within three years.