Iran Proposes $30 Bln Gas-for-Goods Package to Turkmenistan
Iran has proposed a gas-for-good barter package to Turkmenistan totalling $30 billion.
Mohammad Taghi Amanpour, Consultant & Special Representative to The Iranian Minister of Petroleum for Exporting Goods & Technical and Engineering Services said that Iran imports $2-3 billion worth of natural gas from Turkmenistan annually and is ready to sign a 10-year deal with Ashgabat to barter $3 billion worth of Turkmen gas with Iranian goods, technologies and services annually.
According to Iran’s official statistics, the country imported about 7.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas during last fiscal year, ended on March 21th. The annual report of BP, released on June 11th also indicates that Turkmenistan exported 6.5 bcm of gas to Iran in 2014.
Tehran has signed agreements with Ashgabat to import 14 bcm per annum (bcm/d) of gas, but practically Turkmenistan has delivered only a half of this amount to its second major gas client after the western sanctions was imposed on Iran in mid-2012.
Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported in 2013 that Iran’s debts to Turkmenistan reached above $1 billion due to problems in money transferring operations caused by the sanctions imposed over Iran’s banking system.
It is not clear how Iran would be able to boost good export to Turkmenistan to $3 billion annually, while according to Iran Custom Administration’s statistics, Iran exported $973.6 million of non-oil goods to Turkmenistan and imported $113.7 million of non-oil (and gas) goods from the country during last fiscal year.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said in May 2014 that Iran is willing to pave the way for exporting goods to Turkmenistan in return for importing natural gas from that country.
Turkmenistan was the 7th leading importer of Iranian non-oil goods in the last fiscal year. During President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Ashgabat in March 2014, two neighbors agreed to increase the current $4 billion trade turnover to $6 billion in 2015 and keep this amount for 10 years.
Iran also increased the service exports value to about $12 billion last year, which indicates 22 percent increase year-to-year. There is not detailed information about the target markets of Iranian services, but Iran has repeatedly announced that the country is ready to increase service export to Turkmenistan. Service, oil, fuels and gas are not involved in Iran Custom Administration’s reports.