Offshore Pipe-Laying Work Begins for Iran's Jask Oil Terminal

EghtesadOnline: The operation to lay offshore pipelines for Jask Oil Terminal has started, the head of the project said.

News ID: ۷۸۵۸۰۶

21 January 2021

"Shore pulling operation leading to the first mooring buoy of the terminal, which is 2.5 km long, was launched on Tuesday,” Vahid Maleki was quoted as saying by the Oil Ministry news agency Shana.

“This is the first phase of the offshore development of the terminal,” he said, adding that work will be completed with the construction of two 36-inch offshore pipelines stitching over 12 km.

Maleki said the phase has made 70% progress and is expected to come online by late March. “The project will create 1,200 direct jobs”.

Jask export terminal, the largest after Kharg, is being constructed as the last part of a macro plan to diversify export terminals and reduce dependency on the strategic but busy Strait of Hormuz.

The terminal is to be fed by Goureh-Jask oil pipeline stretching over 1,000 km from Goureh in Bushehr Province, to Jask in Hormuzgan Province.

So far an estimated $300 million has been invested in the project, and $850 million is needed to wrap up the work by the end of the year. When ready, Jask Oil Terminal will store 30 million barrels of crude and export one million.

Kharg Terminal in the Persian Gulf has been Iran’s main oil export terminal for decades. Jask will be another major site with the advantage that oil tankers need not pass through the narrow and permanently clogged Strait of Hormuz.

The major project is on track while Iran’s oil exports have declined since Donald Trump, the defamed US president, imposed tough new economic sanctions after abandoning the 2015 historic Iran nuclear deal with world powers in the summer of 2018.

Official data on Iran’s oil exports in the past 30 months is not available, but unofficial reports suggest that it has fallen to 200,000 barrels per day from 2.4 million bpd before the sanctions.

However, the incoming President Joe Biden has said that he will honor the nuclear agreement and ease the restrictions if Tehran is in compliance.

Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh Zanganeh has said Iran would be able to sell 2.3 million bpd of oil soon after easing of the unilateral US sanctions.