Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 6
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
Tehran will start exporting natural gas to Baghdad by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2014), the managing director of Iranian Gas Engineering and Development Company said on Wednesday.
"Due to the first Iran-Iraq pipeline, Tehran will have the capacity to export eight to 10 million cubic of gas per day to neighbouring Iraq," the Mehr News Agency quoted Alireza Gharibi as saying.
"Iran will construct two pipelines to export gas to the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Basra," he explained.
"Construction of the second pipeline will be started as soon as the contract is signed," Gharibi added.
He went on to note that Iran's sixth cross-country gas pipeline will feed the two pipelines.
Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Hamidreza Araqi said on November 4 that the country plans to export 25 million cubic meters of gas daily to the Iraqi city of Basra.
"The contract will be signed in two weeks," the Fars News Agency quoted Araqi as saying.
"The previous administration had already signed a contract to export gas to Baghdad's power plants," he said.
Araghi, who is also the managing director of National Iranian Gas Company, went on to note that Tehran will export four million cubic meters of gas per day to Baghdad's power plants in the first phase and increase the figure to 25 million cubic meters in the second phase.
Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on October 30 that the country is also looking to sign deals for gas exports to Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran which sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia, has been trying to enhance its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investment, especially in its South Pars Gas Field.