Baku, Azerbaijan, May 10
By Emil Ilgar - Trend:
A 30-member delegation from Russia's Gazprom will visit Iran to discuss the details of the gas swap, as well as the company's possible involvement in Tehran's LNG projects.
Six working groups have been established between Gazprom and the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) to evaluate the prospects for cooperation in the gas trade, exploration, development, production, as well as execution of joint projects, the Mehr news agency quoted Azizollah Ramezani, director of the NIGC international affairs department, as saying May 10.
Oil and gas swap between Iran and Russia was discussed during the visit of the Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak to Tehran last October.
This is the first time that Iran is preparing to start gas swaps with Russia.
Russia and Iran are connected through the 1474.5-km Gazi-Magomed-Astara-Bind-Biand gas pipeline, put into operation in 1971.
However, the delivery capacity of this pipeline is limited and Russia can deliver only four billion cubic meters of gas a year to Iran's northwestern regions, which equals to about 2.9 million tons of LNG.
On the other hand, Russia can launch a second route to Iran through Turkmenistan to deliver several times bigger volume of gas to the Islamic Republic.