"An unpromising market": on Russian gas supplies to Iran

Alexey Belogoryev, Deputy Principal Director on Energy Studies of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Rambler News on the prospects for Russian gas supplies to Iran.

Iran is interested in Russian gas supplies, since the northern part of the country regularly experiences gas shortages and problems with the supply of electricity. Alexey Belogoryev said this in a conversation with Rambler, commenting on Tehran's plans to purchase 9 million cubic meters of Russian gas daily. At the same time, the specialist noted that Iran is not a promising market for Russian gas.

The deal is quite unexpected, since Iran has not previously considered Azerbaijan as a possible transit country, as far as I know. Despite the fact that the creation of the North-South transport corridor between Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia is actively continuing, it is still more likely to be intended for cargo transportation, and not for the supply of energy resources. And I'm not sure that there are ready-made gas transmission capacities on the territory of Azerbaijan to transport more than 3 billion cubic meters of gas per year, this is quite a large amount. Iran itself has been actively developing the gas transportation system in recent years, including in the northwestern provinces. Therefore, most likely, it will be able to accept such a volume. Russia also has the necessary infrastructure - in Dagestan and other regions of the country.

At the same time, Iran by itself is not an interesting and promising market for Russian gas. The volumes of gas supplies that have been indicated (slightly more than 3 billion cubic meters per year) are, frankly, not a very large market. Especially on the scale of Russian exports. That is, this deal is more likely aimed at the overall strengthening of political and economic cooperation, rather than being some kind of breakthrough in the gas industry. It should be considered comprehensively along with active attempts to bring trade to a new level.