The National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) confirmed the halt in Iran’s natural gas exports to Turkey; “due to an explosion in a gas export pipeline on Turkish territories, the gas flow to the neighboring country has reached a temporarily hiatus.”
“Turkey's Butash Gas Company made correspondences to inform NIGC on the gas incident,” said an official asserting “on Thursday evening at 21:30 p.m., the transmission line to Turkey exploded deep under the ground 12 kilometers from Bazargan border and gas export to the neighboring country is temporarily interrupted.”
The official estimated that the hiatus will last for at least seven days reiterating “Iran perceives no limitation on supplying gas to Turkey at any time Butash expresses readiness.”
Majid Aghababaei, Iran’s Deputy Interior Minister for Border Affairs, has also confirmed the halt in gas exports to Turkey since Thursday evening.
Upon completion and implementation of a gas compressor station in the current year, Iran’s gas export capacity in the northwest of the country was boosted by 27 million cubic meters per day.
Since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (began March 20), the volume of Iran’s gas exports to Turkey has experienced an about 8.8 per cent growth as a total of 650 million cubic meters of gas have been deployed to the neighboring state.
Under a 25-year contract inked in 1996 by Tehran and Ankara officials, Iran is committed to supply Turkey with a daily 30 million cubic meters of natural gas until the year 2026.
Currently, about 30 per cent of Turkey’s gas demand is supplied by Iran and there exists the capacity to transport up to 40 million cubic meters per day of natural gas to Turkey.
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