Page 52 - IRANRptSep22

Iran and Russia set to sign gas purchase and swap agreement, says Iranian oil minister
Iran reports booming gas and oil export earnings
after crude oil, constituting almost one-third of the country’s non-oil exports.
Iran and Russia will sign a gas purchase and swap deal in the very near future, according to Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji, as cited by official Iranian energy news agency Shana on August 26.
"The negotiations for the purchase and swap of gas in relation to Russia have been finalised and [the contract] will be signed in the near future in Moscow by the National Iranian Gas Company [NIGC] and the Russian side,” Owji was quoted as saying, following an August 24 meeting in Tehran with Igor Yevgenyevich Levitin, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Negotiations were also held on petroleum product swaps, Oji added.
The minister also stated that in the petrochemical sector, Iran has signed some contracts for the export of products and catalysts to Russia.
Russian companies, he also noted, would be working on improving the recovery factor of Iran’s giant South Pars gas field. In terms of increasing the pressure of gas fields, “the Russians have good capabilities," said Oji. Separately, Majid Chegeni, managing director of NIGC, divulged some statistics on Iran’s gas industry performance while speaking during the inauguration of several gas projects on the occasion of Iran’s Government Week, IRNA reported on August 28.
Chegeni was reported as saying that the country’s gas revenues were up 64% since the new government took office in Iran in August last year.
“An 11% increase in gas exports to Turkey and the continuation of negotiations to increase exports [to Turkey], the collection of around $1.6bn of Iran's gas dues from Iraq and, among other moves, a 138% increase in gas swaps have promoted the energy diplomacy of the 13th government [of the Islamic Republic],” Chegeni was quoted as saying.
Iran’s natural gas refining capacity has reached 1.03bn cubic metres in the past 12 months, while 530 km of new gas pipelines have been laid to transfer fuel to seven power plants, he added.
Already operating the largest natural gas network in West Asia, NIGC says it continues to expand it to the country’s most remote areas and that presently more than 95% of the Iranian population of around 85mn people enjoy natural gas via the network, which extends to over 36,000 km.
According to NIGC data, Iran produces more than 810mn cubic metres (mcm) of natural gas per day. It is mostly used domestically, with relatively small amounts exported to neighbouring countries, including Iraq and Turkey.
Iran has the second largest natural gas reserves in the world, behind those of Russia. New discoveries, when confirmed, could see Iran take the number one spot in years ahead, say analysts.
Iran's gas export earnings for the first four months of the Persian calendar year (March 21 to July 21) reached nearly $4bn, the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Oil Minister Javad Owji as saying on July 27. "We have collected close to $4 billion of gas exports for the first four months of the year, which is nearly as much as what was collected for the entire previous year," Owji was quoted as saying.
A day previously, economy minister Ehsan Khandouzi told a press briefing that the Islamic Republic’s income from oil and condensate exports in the first four months of the Iranian year was higher by 580% y/y.
"Due to the increase in oil exports and our new budget's currency conversion rate, we saw a 580% increase in the treasury's income from the export of oil and condensate in the first four months of this year," Khandouzi said.
The Iranian government says it has devised sanction-proofed ways to repatriate funds to the treasury from earlier energy exports, while officials claim
52 IRAN Country Report September 2022 www.intellinews.com