Turkish News Site: Iran Will Not Decrease Its Int’l Gas Price

Ankara, April 3, IRNA – Iran’s insistence on maintaining the price of its export liquidated natural gas (LNG) to Turkey has had a negative effect on Turkey’s national economy, claimed Turkey’s Zaman news site Monday. According to that Turkish news website’s article titled: “US $500 for 1,000 C3 of Iran’s LNG” wrote, “Keeping in mind the ongoing European economic crisis many of the LNG producer countries have agreed to lower their export prices, but Iran still emphasizes on maintaining the price of its gas export price to Turkey and this has put Turkey in a tough situation. “Turkey pays 500 US dollars for importing 1,000 cubic meters of LNG from Iran which is US $100 above the price of the same quantity of imported gas from Russia today.” According to this website, the price of crude oil has exceeded the predictions at international markets following Iran’s sanction on oil sales to Britain and France, and this has also affected the price of natural gas. That is the reason why Turkey has asked for reducing the LNG price, which has been accepted by the Russian Gazprom Company, but rejected by the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC). Turkey and Iran signed a contract in 1996, based on which Turkey has accepted to buy 10 billion cubic meters of Iran’s LNG within a 25-year period (till the year 2016). Turkey imports 45.6% of its required natural gas from Russia, 24.3% of it from Iran, 14.2% from Azerbaijan Republic, 12.2% from Algeria, and 3.7% from Nigeria. Pakistan is already more than eager to buy as much natural gas as Iran can provide to make up for the sever energy shortage gripping its industrial and electricity production centers after the completion of the IP gas pipeline, which has the potential for extension into India initially, and from there to the energy thirsty China, with the world’s most rapidly growing economy./end