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TEHRAN, Feb. 21 (Shana) – The petroleum ministers of Iran and Iraq have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for cooperation in various oil and gas-related grounds.
Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh and his Iraqi opposite number Jabar Ali al-Luaibi signed the document on Monday.
Assisting Iraq with renewing its oil and gas refining infrastructure is another field the two neighbors will cooperation based on the agreement.
Offering scholarships to Iraqi students to study higher level upstream oil and gas courses in Iranian Universities was also stipulated in the MOU.
Besides, the two officials discussed and reached an understanding regarding export of crude oil from Iraq’s Kirkuk through Iranian territories.
Bijan Zangeneh left Tehran for Baghdad as the head of a delegation to Iraq on Monday.
The visit was being made as follow-up on last month’s visit of another Iranian delegation to neighboring Iraqi for discussing details about signature of two memoranda of understanding (MoUs) between the oil ministers of the two countries.
The second deal will include different petroleum industry sectors like crude oil trade, manufacture of equipment, natural gas export, renovation of Iraqi refineries by Iranian private companies and training.
However, he said, the required letters of credit for the transaction have not been opened yet.
Iran’s gas will go to the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Basra.
Gas delivery to Basra would come from Iran Gas Trunkline VI (IGAT 6) which transfers gas from the giant offshore South Pars gas field in southern Iran to the border province of Khuzestan.
Iraq is facing serious load-shedding and Iranian companies are operating 33 megaprojects, worth $1.5 billion, in Iraq for the time being.