IRANIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER: SECOND IRAN-ARMENIA NATURAL GAS PIPELINE COULD BE BUILT
Santa Fe New Mexican, NM
Sept 12 2006
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) – The Iranian parliament speaker said Tuesday
that his nation could build a second natural gas pipeline to this
ex-Soviet nation.
The first Iranian pipeline currently under construction is expected to
be completed later this year and Iranian parliament speaker Gholam Ali
Haddad Adel said that the two nations were considering the possibility
of building a second one. He did not give any details.
Adel also said that Iranian oil exports to Armenia were under
consideration.
Construction on the US$220 million (?173 million) natural gas pipeline
began in 2004, and its first section set to be completed this year
will have an initial capacity of 1.7 billion cubic meters.
Energy-hungry Armenia is looking to the pipeline to lessen its reliance
on supplies of Russian gas via Georgia, which lies between them. But
officials said Armenia would continue to receive gas from Russian
monopoly Gazprom and that some of the gas from Iran would be used to
generate electricity, which would then be used as payment for Iran.