Baku, Azerbaijan, June 20
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Iran’s gas export to Turkey has increased by 11 percent during the first three months of the current fiscal year (started March 20), head of the Dispatching Management Department at National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), Abdolreza Ebrahimian said.
Iran on average exported 21.5 million cubic meters of gas to Turkey per day during the period, Ebrahimian said, SHANA news agency reported June 20.
Iran is Turkey’s second supplier of gas after Russia, providing for one-fifth of the country’s consumption. Iranian gas is supplied to Turkey via the Tabriz-Ankara pipeline, which has a capacity of 14 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
In 1996, Iran and Turkey signed a 25-year deal on supplying 30 million cubic meters of gas to Turkey per day. Although the contract is still in place, it remains a sore point in the two countries’ gas relationship. The two sides have held new talks on both price and volume of imported gas from Iran.
Turkey wants Iran to make a 25-percent discount for the gas. Iran in turn says that it can make a discount for Turkey if the latter imports more gas from the country.
Iran exported 2.83 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey in the first four months of 2016, according to the Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK).
Iran supplied 7.83 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Turkey in 2015 versus 8.93 billion cubic meters in 2014.