ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iran’s oil minister has accused Ankara of dragging its feet on repairs to a critical natural gas pipeline that was damaged in a militant attack in late March, depriving Tehran of hundreds of millions of dollars in desperately needed hard currency.
“The pipeline carrying Iranian natural gas to Turkey was damaged in an explosion earlier this year and it has not been fixed,” oil minister Bijan Zanganeh told an Iranian radio station on Monday.
“Repairing it only requires a few days. Iran expressed readiness to fix the pipeline but this proposal was not received by the other party,” he added.
Mehdi Jamshidi-Dana, director of the National Iranian Gas Company, said at the time the pipeline would be repaired within days of the March 31 attack.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group which has fought a decades-long struggle against the Turkish state for greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The flow of natural gas to Turkey via the pipeline has been interrupted at least 10 times since it became operational in 2001.
In September, Iran made $320 million from natural gas exports to Turkey and Iraq.
Turkey has remained an important trading partner for Tehran at a time when US economic sanctions have deprived the Iranian government of much needed foreign currency.
Iran exports around 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey annually and is considered the third most important source of natural gas after Russia and Azerbaijan.
Iran and Turkey signed a contract in 1996 at a time when demand for natural gas was growing in Turkey.
In his Monday interview, Zanagnaeh said Iran has continued exporting around one million cubic meters of natural gas per day to Iraq. Tehran earned around $200 million dollars per month in early 2019 from exporting natural gas to Iraq, Zanagnaeh said.
However, this volume has dropped significantly partly due to increasing US pressure. A spokesperson for Iraq electricity minister said in late April that Baghdad has reduced its imports of Iranian natural gas by 75 percent.
Iran is currently producing more than 810 million cubic metres (mcm) of natural gas daily, which is mostly used for domestic consumption, and has 991.6 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in reserves, the world’s second largest after Russia.
Turkey has not explained why it is not prepared to fix the pipeline. However the economic impact of the coronavirus likely has something to do with it.
Iranian officials had hoped the pipeline would be repaired by the end of Iranian month of Khordad, which corresponds to June 20.
“A point which should be considered in assessing this situation is that the cold season in the border area between Turkey and Iran is until the end of Ordibehest [May 20] and the need for natural gas is stable in these areas,” state news agency IRNA said in a report on Tuesday.
“Delays in fixing the natural gas pipeline raise this question as to what other source has replaced the natural gas exports from Iran.”
