Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 9/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Iran has cut dependency on importing natural gas from Turkmenistan as the country has inaugurated a number of pressure boost stations to increase gas transfer capacity to northern provinces, Mehr News agency quoted Deputy Oil Minister Javad Owji as saying.
The Parchin pressure boost station has been established at the cost of 1.4 trillion rials (about $115 million), he said, adding that another pressure boost station will come on stream within the next few weeks.
The facilities have the capacity to transfer 58 million cubic meters of gas per day from the North Pars gas field, in the south of Iran, to northern and northeastern provinces.
Iran imports 15-18 million cubic meters of gas per day from Turkmenistan, but the figure reaches 30 million cubic meters during winter.
On Oct.22, IRNA quoted Owji as saying that imports of natural gas from Turkmenistan into Iran have decreased by 52 percent over the first half of the current Iranian year compared to the same period of last year, which began on March 20.
According to BP, Iran imported some 10.2 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan last year, while exporting some 8.4 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey.
Last year, gas consumption and production in Iran amounted to about 153.3 billion cubic meters and 151.8 billion cubic meters, respectively.
Iran also barters around 400,000 cubic meters of its gas to Armenia for electricity. With Azerbaijan, Iran is using swaps, which accounts for one million cubic meters of gas per day.