TEHRAN — Iran's oil minister has appointed a special
envoy for Iraqi affairs, a first for the Islamic republic which is seeking $5
billion in arrears from its neighbor for gas exports.
اضافة اعلان
The ministry's Shana news agency said Oil Minister Javad
Owji had tasked Abbas Beheshti with "endeavoring to speed up settling gas
export claims".
Iraq buys gas and electricity from
Iran to supply about a
third of its power sector, which has been worn down by years of conflict and
poor maintenance.
Despite sanctions imposed by Washington since 2018, Tehran
exports gas to Baghdad under a series of temporary US waivers meant to wean
Iraq off Iranian energy.
Under agreements signed in 2013 and 2015,
Iraq imports 70
million cubic meters of Iranian gas per day.
The neighbors also signed a two-year electricity supply
contract in June 2020.
But Iran has repeatedly cut off the gas and electricity
supplies in order to pressure Iraq into paying outstanding bills.
According to Shana, Beheshti was tasked with
"identifying the capacities and potentials of the two countries in the
field of trade in oil and petroleum products".
He was also asked to identify and create "the necessary
bases to ramp up the mutual presence of private sectors and investors in the
oil industry of the two countries".
In October 2020, Hamid Hoseini, secretary of the Iranian
Union of Petrochemical, Gas and Oil Exporters, said 60 percent of Iran's petrol
exports went to Iraq.
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