Javad Oji, head of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), gave the figures last week. He did not state outright that Iran was importing more than it exported, but left that to his listeners to figure out.
Oji said that in the first 10 months of the current Persian year (March 21-January 20), Iran exported 7.6 billion cubic meters of gas. Later, he mentioned that Iran had imported almost 9 million cubic meters in that same time period.
Iran exports gas primarily to Turkey. It imports gas primarily from Turkmenistan to supply the far northeast, it being cheaper to import gas than to build the infrastructure to move gas from the south of Iran over the Alborz mountains to those isolated areas.
Iran also has a special arrangement with Azerbaijan under which Iran sends gas to the isolated Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan and Azerbaijan ships an equal amount of gas across the border to Iran.
Iran has wanted to become a major gas exporter for decades. Its first big sale was made under the Shah with the Soviet Union. But after the revolution, the new regime said the Soviets were not paying enough and jacked up the price unilaterally. The Soviets stopped buying and never resumed.
The Islamic Republic planned to become a major gas exporter to Europe via pipeline, but the EU has made a policy decision not to buy any Iranian gas until the nuclear issue is resolved.
The Islamic Republic has also tried to export by pipe to India, but the Indians have not signed the contract, objecting to Iran’s demand that India pay when the gas reaches the Pakistani border, meaning that if Pakistan took the gas, India would still be obligated to pay.
To export to countries not reachable by pipelines, Iran has started several projects to make liquefied natural gas (LNG) that can be shipped by tanker. But sanctions have kept away much of the technology Iran needs. Only one LNG project has not been shuttered. Iran insists it will start shipping LNG from that project in 2014, but few analysts believe that.
