Iran slashes gas exports to Turkey

Dawn is reporting,

Iran has slashed gas exports to Turkey after high domestic consumption and a halt in supplies from Turkmenistan left many Iranian towns without gas in freezing weather, the Fars news agency reported Tuesday. “After the sharp falls in temperature over the last days and the halt in deliveries by Turkmenistan, exports of gas to Turkey have been cut to a minimum,” the agency quoted an Iranian source as saying. In January 2007, Iran was forced to completely halt its gas exports to Turkey for five days to compensate for a domestic consumption crunch.

Although not reported in the American Press, Turkmenistan and Iran have been having meetings over pricing of natural gas for this new year. Iran has not been willing to increase its payments which many believe are the root cause of the stoppage of shipments on 30 December 2007. Turkmenistan blames technical problems; however, this seems doubtful. Turkmenistan apparently only supplies 5% of Iranian natural gas supplies.

What is interesting to note is how quickly Iran had to discontinue shipments to Turkey. This issue shows how fragile the Iranian economy really is, and I am sure this fact is not lost on policy makers in the Bush government.