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Showing posts from November 11, 2012

Iran’s new challenge, losing Turkmen gas

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Among the silence of Turkmen officials' position, Iranian Petroleum Minister Rostam Qasemi announced that Turkmenistan has suspended supplying gas to Iran. This is second time during past five years that Turkmenistan cuts gas supplies to Iran in a cold season, while this country reduced gas export to Iran last winter by 10 mcm per day. The head of the Iranian National Gas Company Javad Owji said last month that Turkmenistan's gas exports to Iran has reduced by 52 per cent in the current year compared to last year, while now this country supplies only 4 to 5 mcm of gas per day to Iran. Turkmenistan is obligated to support Iran with 14 bcm of gas per year (nearly 40 mcm per day) through two pipelines: the Korpeje-Kordkuy route which was commissioned in 1996, and the Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipeline which came on stream in 2010. The total capacity of pipelines is about 20 bcm per year. Turkmenistan has enough gas Turkmenistan's natural gas production volume

Forex crisis and smuggling predicament in Iran

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Iran has announced that imports of computer and related components are allowed for import again, several days after the prices on these goods jumped up by 5 times, as a result of administration's decision to ban imports of some luxury goods, including clothing, cell phones, and computer parts. Iran has been grappling with the problems of decreasing oil exports by one million barrels, and accepting Euro and Dollar for selling oil after U.S. and the EU enforced a new round of sanctions as of June 28 and July 1, aiming to cut the Islamic Republic's oil revenues. In March, Iranian Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Shamseddin Hosseini announced the country's foreign exchange reserves at $100 billion. This is while the International Monetary Fund estimated that Iran's forex reserves fell to $70-80 billion last year. Meanwhile, the administration has said that $18 billion of the reserves are the hands of people. Although the amount of Iran's forex reserve