Iran claims to have reached a gas transit agreement with Turkey and Turkmenistan. Javad Owji, Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister and Managing Director of National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) told the Farsi-edition of Mehr News that it would facilitate the transit of Turkmen gas to Turkey for “the volume of natural gas which is projected to be exported to Europe via Turkey.” MEES understands that Ankara is not likely to facilitate any Iranian transit regardless of the evolution of its bilateral gas trade with Iran because simply there are no potential buyers of Iranian gas beyond Turkey’s western borders.
On 4 September Iran’s Petroleum Minister Rostam Qasemi and Turkey’s Minister of Development, Cevdet Yilmaz, who represented the NATO-member country in the recent Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, discussed increasing Iranian gas exports to Turkey. They have been in an uptrend and in 2011 climbed to 8.4 bcm from an estimated 7.7 bcm the previous year. Eventually the gas could transit the extension of the yet incomplete IGAT-6 pipeline connecting Assaluyeh in Iran with the Turkish-Iran border. This remains 52% unfinished according to Alireza Gharibi, the managing director of Iran’s Gas Engineering and Development Company (IGEDC). IGEDC is the NIGC subsidiary responsible for developing Iran’s domestic pipeline network. (CONTINUED - 366 WORDS)
