Iran plans to increase supplies of natural gas to Armenia from 1 to 3 million cubic meters per day in the coming years, Iran’s Press TV channel reported referring to the statement by the Minister of Petroleum of the Islamic Republic of Bijan Namdar Zangeneh.
According to him, Iran "will increase gas exports by 2019."
After a meeting with Armenia’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Levon Yolyan in Teheran the Iranian minister stressed that Iran is taking this step at the request of Yerevan.
According Zanganeh, Iran recently supplied 1 mln cubic meters of gas per day to Armenia, but after the start of repair work on the pipeline which is used to deliver gas from Russia to Armenia, Iran increased its supplies up to 3.5 million cubic meters per day.
"After the elimination of the problems on the Russian pipeline, which will take about 40 days, our shipments will return to normal volumes - 1 million cubic meters per day. However, by the end of 2018 we plan, at the request of the Armenian side, to increase the volume of exports to 3 million cubic meters a day," Zanganeh told the Iranian news agency IRNA.
He also noted that during the negotiations with the Armenian minister they had discussed the Iranian gas transit through Armenia to Georgia.
"This year we signed a small contract with a customer from Georgia. We hope that before the end of the year we will start implementing it by conducting transit of gas through Armenia," Zanganeh said.
(ITAR-TASS)
