The National Iranian Gas Company and its affiliates are capable of playing a role in Iraq's untapped natural gas market.
Morteza Bahiyeh, head of Iraq's Babil Province Chamber of Commerce and Industries made the statement in Tehran on Saturday while addressing a panel on drawing effective strategies to help Iranian enterprises play an effective role in Iraq's oil and gas projects.
Iran's Energy Industries Engineering and Design Company hosted the meeting attended by Iraqi businesses and led by the head of Babil Province Chamber of Commerce and Industries.
"Baghdad is calling on foreign investors to finance its hydrocarbon development projects, especially in Nasiriyah, a southern city in Basra and Diyaleh in the east. This would be a good opportunity for Iranian companies to take the initiative in these cities," Bahiyeh said.
Iraq's National Oil Company will do its best to join hands and form consortiums with Iranian private oil and gas firms, he said.
Due to the US sanctions, Iran’s state-owned firms, namely NIGC, cannot directly interact with Iraqi companies.
According to Hossein Faleh Mazid, head of Iraq's Nasiriyah Chamber of Commerce and Industries, oil and refining projects demand huge funds and the government in Baghdad is reforming its foreign investment laws to pave the way for international financers to play an active role in the war-weary Arab country.
Mazid went on to say Iraq can draw on the experience of NIGC and its subsidiaries to expand its gas grid via pipelines.
"Iranian companies have experience and can help us to do away with the old natural gas cylinders.”
Established in 1996, EIED was founded to develop technical knowledge and applied sciences in the field of energy, mainly oil, gas, petrochemicals and renewable energies, while moving towards
a leading role in executing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) projects of national significance.
Besides importing electricity from Iran, Iraq’s power plants also depend on Iranian natural gas. A shortage last summer fueled unrest in some southern provinces.
To cope with the shortages, Iraq buys up to 28 million cubic meters of Iranian gas per day for power generation alone and directly imports up to 1,300 megawatts of Iranian electricity on a daily basis.
According to Musab al-Mudaris, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity Iraq’s gas imports from Iran will rise to 35 mcm per day by the end of summer.
