Iran needs $100 billion to rebuild its gas industry and has met with European energy giants, Azizollah Ramezani, International Affairs director at NIGC said in June.

Совет директоров утвердил Инвестиционную программу, бюджет (финансовый план) и программу оптимизации (сокращения) затрат ПАО «Газпром» на 2016 год. В соответствии с Инвестиционной программой на 2016 год, общий объем освоения инвестиций составит 842 млрд руб.

South Pars, divided into 29 development phases, contains 40 trillion cubic metres (tcm) of natural gas. It covers an area of 9,700 square kilometres, of which 3,700 square kilometres are in Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometres are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters. The gas field is estimated to contain about 8% of the world’s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.

Next year Georgia plans to increase the volume of natural gas it imports from Russia by 25.2% against 2015 up to 250.5 mcm. According to the natural gas balance for 2016 approved by the Georgian Energy Ministry, it plans to import 65.9 mcm of commercial gas from Russia. Georgia will receive 184.6 million cub.m. (down from 7.7%) from Russian gas transit to Armenia, for which Georgia gets 10% in volume.

Modi and Putin hailed what they termed a “strategic partnership” at their Kremlin meeting on Thursday and pledged to boost business ties, with the Indian leader signaling progress on defense projects to ensure his country upgrades its weapons capability.

“Gazprom has useful and precious experience in various fields of the gas industry and can provide them to the NIGC,” Shana quoted him saying.

U.S. Rig Count is down 9 rigs from last week to 700, with oil rigs down 3 to 538, and gas rigs down 6 to 162.

In 2015, Gazprom increased market share in Europe and Turkey by one percentage point, from 30.2% to 31.2%,

Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev put it more bluntly, telling reporters in Brussels that blocking Nord Stream-2 would be "a shot in the foot" especially for Gazprom's European clients.

Since March 2014, Iran has increased its gas output by 200 million cubic meters per day. The managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company has said that by boosting 100 million cubic meters per day of gas in the current year, Iran is ready to outpace Qatar, because seven phases of the South Pars will come on stream this year.

The $2.5 billion East-West pipeline connects Galkynysh and other fields in the east of the country to its Caspian coast, from where a proposed Trans-Caspian link could deliver gas to Azerbaijan and then to Europe.

Rhetoric and geopolitical ambitions can be self-defeating in that respect, as the natural gas sector tends to be dominated by grandiose infrastructure projects and ambitious themes that may not come to fruition.

US oil major Chevron said on Tuesday it planned to sell up to 1m metric tonnes of LNG a year to China Huadian Green Energy from 2020, ensuring 80 per cent of gas from its Gorgon and Wheatstone projects is committed in long-term contracts.

A spokesman for the US oil and gas producer confirmed it had sold its 50 per cent stake in the venture, which is focused on the far north-west of Russia. Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, also sold its stake in the asset last week, in a deal that valued the business at about $150m-$200m, according to one person familiar with the matter.

Gazprom and some utilities say Nord Stream-2 is the most pragmatic solution to shoring up Europe's energy security. The European Commission has said it is assessing its legality.