Iran will contribute more than 50% of Middle East’s oil and gas pipeline additions to 2022

Iran is forecast to add the highest trunk pipeline length in the Middle East oil and gas pipelines industry between 2018 and 2022, contributing a total length of 12 698 km, which will account for more than 50% of the region’s planned and announced oil and gas pipeline length additions, according to data and analytics company GlobalData.

As World Pipelines writes in an article "Iran will contribute more than 50% of Middle East’s oil and gas pipeline additions to 2022, says GlobalData", the company’s report, ‘Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry Outlook in Middle East to 2022’, forecasts that around 24 066 km of planned oil and gas pipeline length will be added in the Middle East by 2022, which will take the region’s total oil and gas pipeline length to around 106 325 km by 2022.

Iran has new build CAPEX of around US$22.3 billion for the forecast period. Iranian Gas Trunk line-IGAT IX is the longest planned pipeline in the region and is expected to start its operations in 2020, with a planned length of 1900 km and diameter of 56 in.

Soorya Tejomoortula, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Iran is planning to ramp-up its oil and gas production, which in turn is necessitating the new pipeline network. The country is also planning a couple of long natural gas pipelines for exports to Greece and Oman.”

GlobalData identifies Iraq as the second highest in terms of oil and gas pipeline length additions and the highest for spending on planned pipelines in the Middle East oil and gas pipelines industry. The country has planned investment of around US$29.6 billion by 2022 and plans to add a total length of 5105 km of oil and gas pipelines by 2022. Major pipelines in the country are Basra-Aqaba Oil and Basra-Aqaba Gas pipelines, each with lengths of 1700 km. Tejomoortula adds: “Iraq is planning two multibillion dollar pipelines to Jordan for export of oil and gas. The country is also planning a pipeline to Turkey for oil exports from the mature Kirkuk field.”

Turkey is the third highest among the countries in the Middle East, in terms of oil and gas pipeline length additions as well as new build capex spending with around US$5.8 billion planned investment during the forecast period. Turkey is expected to add around 2030 km of planned and announced oil and gas pipelines by 2022.

The three longest planned and announced natural gas pipelines in the Middle East between 2018 and 2022 are Iranian Gas Trunk line-IGAT IX pipeline in Iran, Trans Anatolian (TANAP) pipeline, and Iran-Turkey-Europe Gas (Turkey Section) pipeline with lengths of 1900 km, 1850 km and 1800 km respectively.