The Minister of Petroleum of Iran Javad Owji in a meeting Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure of Armenia Gnel Sanosyan in Tehran on Monday expressed the country’s readiness to start swap supplies of natural gas from Turkmenistan to Armenia.
During the meeting, the Iranian Minister also expressed the National Iranian Gas Company's (NIGC) readiness for increasing gas exports to neighboring Armenia, the Iranian Petroleum Ministry’s news agency Shana reports.
“Negotiations for gas swap from Turkmenistan to Armenia have started and we will soon achieve good results in this regard due to the high capacity of the country's gas network," Owji told Shana after the meeting.
The two countries signed a gas-for-electricity barter deal in 2004, based on which, for a 20-year period, Iran would export gas to Armenia to be consumed by the country’s power plants. In return, Iran imports electricity from Armenia. Armenia has been importing natural gas from Iran since mid-2009.
Last November, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan signed a gas swap agreement. The swap supplies of Turkmen natural gas to Azerbaijan through Iran has started in January this year.