IRAN, ARMENIA TO HOLD GAS TALKS

press tv
Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:59:16 GMT

Tehran and Yerevan are scheduled to hold talks in a bid to remove
obstacles in the way of natural gas exports from Iran to Armenia.

Head of the gas export operation office of the National Iranian Gas
Company (NIGC), Rasoul Salmani, said on Monday that the talks would
take place in Armenia on August 20, 2008.

Tehran and Yerevan are currently constructing a 140-km pipeline to
carry natural gas from gas-abundant Iran to Armenia.

Once completed, the 220-million-dollar pipeline would provide Armenia
with an alternative to the gas it now imports from Russia. For each
cubic meter of Iranian gas, Armenia will return 3 kilowatt hours of
electricity to Iran.

In June, Armenia’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Armen
Movsisyan, said that Russian energy giant Gazprom would invest more
than 200 million dollars in the construction of the pipeline.