IRAN-ARMENIA GAS PIPELINE TO COME ON STREAM THIS WEEK

Mehr News Agency
May 10 2009
Iran

Tehran: National Iranian Gas Export Company [NIGEC] Managing Director
Seyyed Reza Kasa’izadeh announced on Sunday [10 May] that Iran will
start shipments of natural gas to Armenia this week.

Kasa’izadeh told PIN that he would be leaving for Armenia tomorrow
at the head of a delegation to attend the opening ceremony for the
Iran-Armenia gas pipeline.

According to the deal signed in May 2004, Armenia will pay for the
gas with electricity it produces at a Soviet-era nuclear power plant.

The NIGEC managing director said the pipeline has a diameter of
30 inches and runs for 113 kilometres from Tabriz, East Azerbaijan
Province to the Iran-Armenia border.

The two countries had originally agreed to finalize the project
in January 2007, but the Armenians later said they were not ready,
Kasa’izadeh added.

He explained that the volume of gas exports could rise to 4 million
cubic meters a day in 2011 and to 6.3 million cubic meters a day
afterwards.