Iran resumes gas exports to Turkey

The flow of Iranian gas was resumed to Turkey on Saturday just 30 hours after a pipeline explosion, the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) was quoted by the Mehr news agency as saying. “This pipeline went through the final stages of repair and the flow of gas resumed on Saturday at noon,” Javad Oji said. Oji added that Iranian engineers succeeded to repair the pipeline in a very short time. “We repaired and resumed the pipeline in just 30 hours, which is a new record in this issue”, he said. The explosion occurred on Friday morning near the Bazargan border crossing, close to the city of Maku in Iran’s West Azarbaijan province. It was not the first time Iran’s gas exports to Turkey have been disrupted. In the summer of 2010, the pipeline was damaged twice in blasts blamed on separatist Kurdish rebels. Iran, which has the second-largest proven gas reserves in the world after Russia, exports about 30 million cubic meters of gas to Turkey daily