TEHRAN, Jan 1: Iran slashed gas exports to Turkey after high domestic consumption and a halt in supplies from Turkmenistan left many Iranian towns without gas in freezing weather, the Fars news agency reported on Tuesday.

“After the sharp falls in temperature over the last days and the halt in deliveries by Turkmenistan, exports of gas to Turkey have been cut to a minimum,” the agency quoted an Iranian source as saying.

“We are obliged to deliver

20 million cubic metres of gas (706 million cubic feet) to Turkey daily but now the volume of exports has been reduced to five million cubic metres (177 million cubic feet),” the source added.

In January 2007, Iran had been forced to completely halt its gas exports to Turkey for five days to compensate for a domestic consumption crunch.

Demand has surged again this year with heavy snowfalls and temperatures in Iran’s north plummeting to -10 degrees Celsius, causing gas cuts in around a dozen Iranian cities and towns, local media said.

The problem has been compounded by a complete halt in gas supplies from Turkmenistan -- which normally meets five per cent of Iran’s consumption needs -- because of what officials have called “technical problems.”

“The cold and the drop in gas pressure have created problems throughout the country,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state television.

“For us, as exporters of gas to Turkey, there have also been problems,” he added.

Development of Iranian gas fields is held up by a lack of foreign investment, although last week Tehran signed a landmark six-billion-dollar development deal with Malaysia.

Turkey is currently the only significant importer of Iranian gas, which has been pumped since 2001 via a pipeline from the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz to Ankara under a contract signed in 1996.—AFP