NEW DELHI, MAY 18: National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) plans to set up a 7.5 million tonnes per year (tpy) liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Iran in partnership with India's Reliance and Malaysia's Petronas, Indian industry sources said on Thursday."Last week, Reliance signed a memorandum of understanding with NIOC for setting up a 7.5 million tonne LNG plant in Iran," an industry official, who did not want to be identified, said.State-run oil and gas company Petronas had also signed the same MoU with NIOC, the official said. Petronas, Reliance and NIOC will each hold 25 per cent equity in the $3.5 billion project."The fourth partner is yet to be decided," said the official.The gas for the liquefaction plant will be sourced from blocks in Iran's South Pars field, said an oil company official.A Reliance spokesman declined to comment while Petronas and NIOC officials could not be immediately reached on Thursday."Petronas and Reliance have given assurances (to NIOC) of buying some quantity, about 2.5 million tonnes each," the oil company official said.Petronas has a preliminary agreement to supply up to 2.6 million tonnes of LNG to Enron India's 740-megawatt (MW) Dabhol power project, whose capacity is to be raised by another 1,624 MW in 2001.Reliance has Indian cabinet approval to set up a LNG import and regasification terminal at Jamnagar and Hazira in Gujarat. Each would handle 5.0 million tonnes of LNG a year.Reliance, which has a refinery and petrochemical complex at Jamnagar, is one of the bidders for setting up a 2,000 MW power project at Pipavav, which is also located in Gujarat.
