Turkish state pipeline operator Botas announced yesterday that Iran has temporarily lowered the volume of natural gas flow to Turkey by 50 per cent, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency has reported.
According to Anadolu, Turkish officials contacted their Iranian counterparts who explained that the decline was due to growing local demand as well as a number of technical reasons.
The director of Iran’s National Gas Company, Manouchehr Taheri, said the gas flow returned to normal after a technical problem with the supply facilities was resolved.
Commenting on the incident, experts in the natural gas market said lowering the gas volume was not an emergency situation, and takes place every year; adding that the reduction process “was not the result of tension between Iran and Turkey” but because of weather conditions and low temperatures in the exporting country.
Turkey consumed 49.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2014 an imported 6 billion cubic meters of gas from Iran, equivalent to 18 per cent of its national needs.