TEHRAN, Iran, June.15
Trend:
Iraq has plans to increase gas production and it is predicted to become an exporter itself in the future that would affect gas imports from Iran, said an expert in the field of energy.
"Iraq could become a gas exporter itself in next five years that would first head to regional markets and then join the world LNG exporters, and it is likely that Iran's share of the global market would be reduced," said Morteza Behrouzi, Trend reports citing ILNA.
"Iraq has overcome domestic political crisis and by next decade it would not need to import gas and it could even export gas to neighbor countries such as Kuwait and Jordan," he noted.
"It is possible that Iran's share of export would shrink, most countries prefer to supply their energy need from various sources. Therefore considering that Turkey for example would not extend its gas import contract with Iran is unlikely since it is Turkey's interest to import from Iran, Russia, and Azerbaijan because any political or technical issue would create a crisis and diverse sources would avoid the problem," Behrouzi added.
Iran annually exports 17 billion cubic meters of gas that 10 billion cubic meters of the sum are headed to Iraq and the rest delivered to Turkey. Export of gas to Iraq has faced challenges due to sanctions and lack of possibility to transfer money from Iraq and the country's long delay in paying its debt to Iran in Euro or USD that have lead Iraqi officials to diversify their imports.