At a meeting on Monday morning in Tehran, Iran’s First Vice-President Es’haq Jahangiri and Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borissov began a new round of negotiations between the two countries over forming the first joint gas center.
Iran’s Jahangiri pointed to the conducted talks with the Bulgarian side over oil, gas and petrochemical industries asserting “the economic documents inked between the two states can facilitate trade cooperation between Tehran and Sofia.”
Consequently, given the related talkes held two years ago as well as today’s agreements, Iran is now more likely to join the Nabucco-West pipeline.
The aim of the Nabucco pipeline is to diversify the natural gas suppliers and delivery routes for Europe, thus reducing European dependence on Russian energy. The original project was backed by six European Union member states from turkey to Germany and the main supplier was expected to be Iraq, with potential supplies from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Egypt.
Preparations started in 2002 and the intergovernmental agreement between Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria was signed on 13 July 2009.
Iran had previously proposed to supply gas to Nabucco pipeline though its construction was suspended due to political conditions and the international sanctions against Iran.
European officials had estimated that the 3,893-km pipeline will provide the possibility to discharge an annual amount to 31 billion cubic meters of gas from the Caspian and Middle East region countries via Turkey to Europe.
In view of the lifting of sanctions against Tehran, stakeholders at several European companies are looking forward to Iran’s return to the pipeline.
On that account, Iran’s ambassador to Sofia held relevant talks with several Bulgarian officials two years ago with the main axis being Iran’s return to the Nabucco project.
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