This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Iran has long-term plans to sell natural gas to Europe, according to its deputy oil minister Ali Majedi. Speaking in March 2014, the deputy minister said there were three pipelines through which Iran could send the energy: through Turkey, through Iraq-Syria-Lebanon, or through Armenia-Georgia-Black Sea. “The Turkey pipeline would be the cheapest way,” he said. The efforts of the Islamic State to create a caliphate in the area would appear to disqualify the Iraq-Syria-Lebanon route, in any case.
Iran’s Oil Minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, confirmed that when the South Pars gas field comes on stream in March 2015, Iran would have extra gas to export. Zanganeh told the IRNA news agency that the country was planning on exporting 80 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey, Europe, Iraq, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf States. Shipments to Europe could be via pipeline or in the form of liquefied natural gas, LNG. The main impediment to these shipments are the various sanctions against Iran, because of their nuclear program.
Such talks should bring joy to Europeans who fear a cutoff of Russian gas and a cold winter, but Iranian President Hassan Rouhani discouraged such thoughts for the short term. Speaking on Russian television in October, Rouhani said that Iran was not ready to replace Russia as a key gas supplier, even if the sanctions were lifted. “We are lagging in production and think about domestic consumption first,” said the President. “Conditions today are not such when everybody would think that if Russia stops gas supplies tomorrow then this gas would be supplied by Iran. Our production is far from this stage yet.”
The two sets of statements do not contradict each other. Rouhani did not deny plans to replace Russian gas supplies to Europe, only stating that conditions did not exist currently to allow it to happen. Zanganeh said exports could not begin until next year. For the present, then, Europe remains as reliant on Russian gas as ever. Should sanctions be lifted, however, the planned TANAP pipeline through Turkey could be expanded to include Persian gas deliveries.
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