Industry and Energy

Home page

Industry and Energy

Iran restarts importing gas from Azerbaijan

03 October 2009 11:44 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Rashad Suleymanov- APA-ECONOMICS. Iran has resumed importing natural gas from Azerbaijan after a three-month suspension, says an Iranian official with National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC).

"Technical problem and seasonal repairs were the main factors behind the three-month suspension of gas imports form Azerbaijan," head of the NIGC dispatching center, Hassan Montazer-Torbati, told Mehr Mews Agency.

He did not elaborate on the nature of ’the technical problem’.

The official said that the flow resumed on October 1 with about one million cubic meters (35.32 million cubic feet) of gas per day.

Last month, Iran’s ambassador to Baku, Mohammad Baqer Bahrami, said that Iran and Azerbaijan have agreed on a deal for Tehran to import 5 billion cubic meters (176.57 billion cubic feet) of Azeri gas per year.

Bahrami said the agreement would be reviewed during an upcoming visit by Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov to Iran.

He said Iran’s Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi would also pay a visit to Baku in this regard, according to a report in the Today.AZ website.

Azeri Energy Minister Natik Aliyev says Iran is seeking to buy Azerbaijani natural gas that is being produced in its Shah Deniz deposit at the Caspian Sea.

"There are other proposals on the table for the purchase of gas from the Shah Deniz deposit. For instance, Iran has also proposed purchasing the entire gas output from this deposit," Aliyev stated in an international conference on Caspian oil and gas in June.