Officials said that Iranian gas exports to Turkey had not been flowing earlier in the month due to wintry weather, which boosted domestic demand for gas in Iran. "Our gas (flow) was cut a few months ago due to heavy winter conditions in Iran. Now we have the same situation," said one official. Tehran said that heavy snowfall had shut schools and stopped flights, and that domestic demand for gas had risen. Similar weather in Turkey blocked air and sea traffic in Istanbul for a while in February. Iran has the world's second-largest reserves of natural gas after Russia, and has agreed to pump 500,000cum/hr to Turkey. The country is the biggest buyer of Iranian gas, and is heavily dependent on energy imports; it started buying gas from its eastern neighbour in 2001 at the rate of 4billion cum/yr. This is set to rise to 10 billion by 2007 as Turkey's gas consumption rises by a forecast 15.7% to 25.8billion cum this year, with 15.5billion cum expected to come from Russia. Ankara is working to reach an agreement for gas sales to Israel, and will start pumping 246million cum/yr of gas to Greece in 2006. Gas imports to Turkey from Russia will rise by 6.9% in 2005 to 15.5billion cum, according to Turkish energy officials. Russia has now delivered over 5billion cum of gas through the 1,213-km Blue Stream pipeline to Turkey since its completion at the end of 2002; the link carried 3.3billion cum in 2004.