OREANDA-NEWS. January 12, 2010. The president of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Rovnag Abdullayev, has received in Baku today the delegation of National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) led by Seid Reza Kesayzadeh.

SOCAR reports that during the meeting Kesayzadeh pointed out that the sides are finishing work on organization of realization of short-term agreement on Azeri gas supplies to Iran.

In the course of the meeting the parties covered issues of modernization and reconstruction of Azerbaijan’s gas transport system and gas storages for beginning of gas supplies to Iran.

The contract for gas supplies to Iran was signed between SOCAR and NIGEC within the framework of the visit of Azerbaijani foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov to this country in mid-December 2009. It stipulates short- and long-term gas supplies.

Earlier SOCAR emphasized that the sides are going to finish another round of talks for start of gas export to Iran.

Iranian sources indicated that supplies will be launched in early February.

The SOCAR president, in his turn, stated that repairs works on infrastructure for gas export to Iran were still underway.

“Export itself of up to 5 million cu m per day will start after completion of repairs,” Abdullayev said.

He, however, did not indicate the finishing date.

At the same time SOCAR launched on schedule (since 1st January 2010) gas export to Russia within the relevant contract with Russian gas monopoly Gazprom (the contract signed by the two countries’ monopolies envisages annual export of at least 500,000 cu m of gas a year to Russia in period of until 2014 inclusively). Current supplies to Russia make up 1.5 million cu m of gas and in 2010 SOCAR will supply 1 bn cu m of gas to Russia.