Iran’s restarts gas exports to Turkey

Iran has restarted exports of natural gas to Turkey that had been halted as a result of a “technical problem” from last Thursday.

Iran says it has resumed exports of natural gas to Turkey after supplies were disrupted this past Thursday. 

Majid Boujarzadeh, the spokesman of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), told the domestic media that Turkey’s Botas had removed a technical fault that had caused the halt in supplies.

Boujarzadeh added that Iran has resumed pumping about 27 million cubic meters to Turkey as the initial volume.  This, he added, would increase to the standard level within the next hours.

Iran is Turkey’s second supplier of gas after Russia, providing one-fifth of the country’s consumption. The current volume of natural gas that Iran is piping to its northwestern neighbor is 30 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d). 

Officials in Tehran had already emphasized that the Islamic Republic is ready to increase its gas exports to Turkey by 6 mcm/d.

Iran has also for long been working on a plan to export its natural gas to Europe through Turkey. The plan – that was to be carried out though the Nabucco scheme – was eventually put on hold due to a series of technicalities. 

Nevertheless, officials in Tehran announced last month that the possibility that gas exports to Europe would return to the agenda exists “if the requited agreements with Europeans countries over the plan are reached”.