Iran confirms it has started transiting Turkmen gas to Turkey
Iran’s oil minister says the country has started receiving gas from Turkmenistan in its northeast and delivering the same amount to its northwestern neighbor Turkey as part of a swap agreement.
Mohsen Paknejad said on Wednesday that the transit of Turkmen gas to Turkey would have major benefits for Iran, including the increased supply of gas to national grid customers in the northeast of the country where gas pressure normally drops because it is far from Iran’s gas production centers in the south.
Paknejad said that the swap agreement would also boost Iran’s position as a major regional energy hub.
“This effort is a sign of government’s determination to expand energy diplomacy,” he said, according to remarks covered by the Iranian Oil Ministry’s news service Shana.
However, the minister indicated in his remarks that the details of the gas swap deal between Iran, Turkmenistan, and Turkey have yet to be finalized.
“One can say that this agreement has become operationalized, but we should wait until other aspects of the agreement can be publicized in the media in the future,” said Paknejad.
A report published by Turkmenistan’s official newspaper Neutral Tyrkmenistan in early February showed that the country’s state-run gas company Turkmengas had signed a deal with Turkey's state-owned BOTAS to start gas exports through Iran beginning March 1.
The report said that Turkmenistan’s chairman of the People's Council Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov had held a phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to praise the deal as a major development in the regional energy cooperation.
Turkmenistan’s Foreign Minister Raşit Meredow visited Tehran on February 12 to meet with Pezeshkian and Paknejad.
Iran, Turkmenistan, and Turkey have yet to make an official statement to explain the size and price of the gas supplies negotiated under the deal.
That comes as Iran’s Tasnim news agency said in a report last month that Turkmengas will be able to use the idle capacity of an Iranian export pipeline to Turkey to supply up to 4 billion cubic meters per year of natural gas to BOTAS.
Iran has signed several gas swap agreements with Turkmenistan in recent years to supply gas to Azerbaijan and Iraq.
Experts say Turkey’s new gas import agreement with Turkmenistan will allow the country to ship a part of the gas being imported from Azerbaijan to Europe.
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