Iran and Syria have signed an accord to build a gas pipeline for transferring Iran’s natural gas to Europe, Managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), Mr. Owji announced here.
According to the report of the public relations of the NIGC, he said that Iranian gas pipeline will procure energy needs of Iraq and Syria and by passing through the territories of these two countries it is connected to the Mediterranean Sea via south Lebanon and then to Europe.
He declared that based on a trilateral agreement of Iran, Iraq and Syria an international consultant will be chosen within the next month for implementing the preliminary works for construction of the pipeline.
“It is estimated that this pipeline will be constructed with a length of 2000 Km with a 56 inches in diameter. The length of this pipeline in Iranian territories will be 700 to 1000 Km, its length in Iraq will be 500 Km and in Syria between 500 Km to 700 Km”, he said.
He went on to say that, the capacity of this pipeline for transport of gas will be 110 million cubic meters.
By construction of this pipeline, it is estimated that Iraqi gas needs will be procured by 10 to 15 million cubic meters per day, Syria’s gas needs by 15 to 20 million cubic meters and south Lebanon’s gas needs by 5 to 7 million cubic meters, he added.
On the price formula, he said that the price would be determined by the consortium that is slated to construct the planned pipeline.
He said that the value of the new pipeline for transport of gas to Europe via Iraq and Syria will vary between 2 to 2.5 billion dollars and financial resources would be procured by foreign financing.
It’s worth mentioning that, NIGC managing director, Javad Oji and deputy Iranian minister of petroleum for foreign and commercial affairs, Ahamad Khaledi and Abdu Hesamaddin Syrian deputy minister of oil and mineral resources and Ali Abbas the managing director of Syrian Oil Company signed the cooperation documents in the presence of the Iranian minister of petroleum, Masoud Mirkazemi and his Syrian counterpart Sofian Alao.
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Source: NIGC, January 24, 2010;