Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 16 / Trend , E.Ismayilov/
In the near future Iran plans to start talks with Azerbaijan to buy the Azerbaijani gas in the volume of five billion cubic meters, the Acting Director of International Relations of National Iranian Gas Company (NICO) Bonagdar Hoshemi said at an international conference in Baku.
"Very soon, in addition to "swap" transactions between Azerbaijan and Iran, it is planned to begin negotiations to purchase the Azerbaijani gas," said Hoshemi.
He said Iran is also ready to sell gas to Georgia.
Last year, Azerbaijan had already delivered 30 million cubic meters of gas to Iran on a commercial basis. At present Azerbaijan is delivering gas to Iran in exchange for Iran's gas supplies to Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan.
The Gazi-Mahammad-Astara-Bin-Biand pipeline (1474.5km) connects Azerbaijan and Iran. Pipeline's carrying capacity is 10bln cu m per year. This route is a branch of the Kazakh-Astara-Iran pipeline, which was put into operation in 1971. Three compressor stations in Gazi-Mahammad, Agdash and Kazakh, were constructed in this line. Gas transport system covers pressure of 55 atmospheres and diameter of the pipeline makes up 1,200mm.
The NICO national Iranian company is participating in the project of development of the giant Shah Deniz gas field with a 10-percent share. The contract on development of off-shore Shah Deniz field was signed on 4 June 1996. Shah Deniz participating interests are: ВР (operator - 25.5 percent), StatoilHydro (25.5 percent), SOCAR (10 percent), LukAgip (10 percent), NICO (10 percent), Total (10 percent), and TPAO (9 percent).
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