The National Iranian Gas Company’s (NIGC) Managing Director, Hamid Reza Araqi, said that Iran is fully ready to start exporting gas to neighboring Iraq as soon as the Arab country opens a line of credit. Araqi added that Iraq are now negotiating with international banks towards this subject, Tasnim News Agency reported.

Iran has laid 100km of pipelines for the project through which 5mcm of natural gas will be exported to Iraq daily in the first stage. The project is estimated to earn Iran $3.7b a year in revenues, according to Pars Today News.

In 2013, the two countries signed a deal on the exports of natural gas from Iran’s giant South Pars Gas Field to Iraq. Based on the agreement, 25mcm of gas will be delivered to Sadr, Baghdad and al-Mansouryah power plants through a 270km pipeline.

Iran has started to expand global relation. Egypt Oil&Gas reported that Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister, Ali Kardor, had announced that the country would invite foreign companies to bid for oil and gas projects in the country’s first round of tenders since sanctions were lifted in January.  Kardor had added that all interested international oil firms should submit their data to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) within 30-days for a qualification procedure.