Iran has received all its payments for oil sales in the post-sanctions era and no oil money has been blocked in foreign banks since the nuclear deal, said deputy oil minister.
Hamid Reza Araghi, Managing Director of National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), touched upon the earlier meeting of Iran’s Foreign Minister Zarif with his Turkish counterpart saying “at the present time, a total of 30 million cubic meters (m3) of gas are being deployed to Turkey per day while the figure can be increased by six million m3/d given the existing infrastructure.”
“The upsurge in gas exports requires signing of a new contract since the objective cannot be realized within the ongoing agreement,” asserted the official.
He went on to add that necessary infrastructure can be prepared in case a long-term deal is inked for escalation of gas exports to Turkey.
NIGC managing director further touched upon the volume of Iran’s gas exports stating “in the first 4.5 months of the previous Iranian calendar year (ended March 20), a total of 2.51 billion cubic meters of Iranian gas were exported while the figure hit 2.93 m3 in the same period this year.”
“An overall amount of 26.71 billion cubic meters of gas were supplied to Iranian power plants in the same period a year ago while the figure reached 27.67 million m3 in the current year,” underlined Araghi.
Deputy oil minister also emphasized that the amount of natural gas transferred to major industries climbed from 12.99 billion m3 to 13.43 billion cubic meters indicating an uplift in production.
In the first four months and a half of the previous year, a total of 1.38 and 3.96 billion cubic meters were injected to Sarajeh and Shourije gas facilities as well as to Aghajari oilfield respectively with the amounts climbing to 1.52 and 5.37 billion m3 in the present year.