Hamid Reza Araqi, an Iranian deputy oil minister who is also the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), said on Monday that Iran will export 3-4 million cubic meters (mcm) of natural gas per day to Iraq by summer.
The Iranian official said that under the agreement, Iranian natural gas will be exported to Iraq in three stages.
On July 2, 2013, Iran signed an agreement with Iraq to deliver natural gas to its western neighbor.
Based on the agreement, 25 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas will be delivered to Sadr, Baghdad and al-Mansouryah power plants through a pipeline.
The 270-kilometer pipeline is estimated to earn Iran USD 3.7 billion a year in revenues.
The pipeline will stretch from Assaluyeh, near the massive offshore South Pars oil and gas field in southern Iran, and will continue into neighboring Iraq to feed Iraqi power plants running on gas.
The South Pars gas field is located in the Persian Gulf on the common border between Iran and Qatar. It is estimated that the field contains 14 trillion cubic meters of gas and 18 billion barrels of condensate.
Iran owns the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves after Russia.
