MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti) – Tehran is planning to build a gas pipeline to Iraq and Syria, the Iranian Oil Ministry said on Wednesday.
“A 56-inch pipeline is to be laid from Assaluyeh [near the South Pars gas field in southern Iran] to the Iran-Iraq border to feed three Iraqi power plants running on gas,” ministry spokesman Alireza Nikzad Rahbar was quoted by Press TV as saying.
A tripartite meeting will soon be held in Baghdad between Iran, Syria and Iraq to develop a plan for extending the pipeline from Iraq to Syria, he added.
Iraq has requested 30 million cubic meters of natural gas per day from Iran in the first phase, which is scheduled to come on-stream by next summer, Nikzad Rahbar said.
Syria has requested 25-30 million cubic meters per day, but the route for the pipeline from Baghdad to the Syrian border has yet to be surveyed, he added.
Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said in July that his country, which has the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia, should start exporting gas to Iraq by March 2013.
