Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 25
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
The SOCAR company has no plans to increase gas supplies to Iran in order to increase gas supply of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (NAR), a source on the energy market of Azerbaijan told Trend August 25.
The source made the remarks commenting on Iran's intention to launch a new gas compressor station in Tabriz, which would increase the supplies of gas to Nakhchivan.
"This station will be really launched soon, however, we have no plans to increase gas supplies to NAR," said the source. "Technical possibilities exist for this, but NAR has no such need for gas. The current supplies to Nakhchivan amount to approximately 960,000 cubic meters of gas daily, and it quite meets the needs of the autonomous republic."
Gas is delivered to Iran in order to meet the gas demands of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, which is in the blockade due to occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands by Armenia.
Around 400 million cubic meters of gas was delivered from Azerbaijan to Iran to meet the demands of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in 2014 and 2013 each.
Azerbaijan and Iran are connected by the Gazi-Muhammad-Astara-Bind-Biand gas pipeline with a length of over 1,474 kilometers. Some 296.5 kilometers of this pipeline runs through Azerbaijan.
This route is a branch of the Gazakh-Astara-Iran pipeline commissioned in 1971. Three compressor stations were built on its route, namely, in Gazi-Muhammad, Aghdash and Gazakh. The diameter of the pipeline is 1,200 millimeters.
Commercial deliveries of Azerbaijani gas are not carried out. However, Iran has repeatedly expressed intention to purchase up to 5 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan per year.
Edited by CN
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