Iran Ready To Sell, Export Natural Gas To Ukraine, Moldavia

Tehran, Aug 17, IRNA – Iran is ready to export its gas to Ukraine, Tehran’s Ambassador to Kiev Akbar Qassemi announced on Friday. “Iran is studying the possibility of sale of its gas to Ukraine and Moldavia,” Qassemi said. He underlined that Ukraine and Moldavia need Iran’s natural gas and Iran has access to the biggest gas reserves of the world. Ukraine presently procures some of its needs from its reserves in the southern parts of the country and it also imports a major part from Russia. Ukraine, however, is discontent with the conditions set by Russia for sale of its natural gas to that country which costs about $450 for every 1,000 cubic meters of gas forcing it to ask several times from Russia to reconsider the conditions its has set for exporting its gas to that country. The differences between Ukraine and Russia are still lingering and the negotiations for settling them have not reached anywhere so far. Ukraine purchased a total of 12.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia in the past seven months which was about 6.3 billion cubic meters or 34 percent less than the amount it had bought in the corresponding period of previous year./end