Azerbaijan, Baku, Sep.14/ Trend F.Karimov/
Iran began to offer repair and maintenance services to petrochemical facilities in Turkmenistan, Mehr News Agency reported.
Turkmenistan's Tejen petrochemical company has invited Iran's National Petrochemical Company to repair some of its production units and to streamline the production processes.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that he negotiated with Turkmen officials about the two countries' gas deal during his visit to Ashgabat.
"We didn't discuss any new contract, but had negotiations on the details of the previously signed contract," Zanganeh said, IRNA News Agency reported.
"We intend to resume gas imports from Turkmenistan in exchange of exporting technical and engineering services to the northern neighbor," he added.
Abdol-Hamid Asadian, head of the Trade Promotion Organization's Bureau for Europe and Americas said in March that Iran buys about $3 billion of natural gas from Turkmenistan a year, Bloomberg reported.
The report didn't provide details of the arrangement.
The nation, the holder of the world's second-largest gas deposits, imported 12 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan in the Iranian calendar year of 1390 (which ended on March 20, 2012).
But the figure fell to 4.5 billion cubic meters in the previous calendar year (which ended on March 20).
Last December Mehr News Agency reported that Iran owes one billion dollars to Turkmenistan over gas imports.
Tightening of banking and energy sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program have complicated financial transactions with the Persian Gulf country.
New U.S. sanctions that came into force last month aim to make buyers of Iranian oil pay in their local currencies, with the funds kept in escrow accounts and available for Iran -only to buy locally sourced goods and services.
Iran's petrochemical products and condensate exports, which shares about a half of Iran's total exports, have decreased by 40 percent in past five months.
Iran's Customs Administration issued its monthly report on August 28, saying that the total non-oil exports during first five months of current solar year (started on March 20) is $15.2 billion, while imports during this period hit $16.3 billion.
Iran includes condensates in the list of non-oil exports.
According to the report, Iran exported $3.1 billion worth of condensates in past five months, (on average $620 million per month), which indicates a 14.3 per cent decrease compared to the same period of last solar year.
Iran exported more than $10 billion worth of condensate in a solar year which ended on March 19, 2012. This figure decreased to $8 billion during the last solar year (ended on March 20, 2013), then comparing current condensate export with the last two years, the figure shows about 26 per cent plunge.
On the other hand Iran's petrochemical products exports have decreased by 14.4 percent in the first five months and reached $3.9 billion compared to the same period of last year.
Iran's petrochemical products exports were $15 billion in a year which ended on March 19, 2012, while this figure reduced to $10 billion the last solar year (ended on March 20, 2013).
Therefore, Iran's average monthly petrochemical exports has decreased by about 40 percent during last two years.