TODAY.AZ / Business

Iran unable to export gas to Europe

01 July 2006 [20:57] - TODAY.AZ
Iran will not be able to meet the natural gas needs in both the peace pipeline and the European Union's Nabucco project concurrently unless the demand for gas in both pipelines are lowered, said an Iranian Oil Ministry official Saturday.

Deputy Oil Minister for International Affairs, Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Husseinian, said if the gas pipeline linking Iran with Pakistan and India - referred to as the peace pipeline - is made operational, there will be no gas left for export to Western Europe.

Nejad-Husseinian said the European Union will need an average of 100 million cubic meters of gas a day.

On the other hand, Nejad-Husseinian said, if negotiations with the European Union over the Islamic regime's share in the Nabucco project reach fruition, then there will be no gas left for export to Pakistan and India through the trilateral peace pipeline. Nejad-Husseinian was speaking to reporters on the sideline of the opening of a Thai energy office in Tehran.

He said an alternative will be to have the projected demand for gas in both projects lowered.

"The European countries have a great inclination for receiving gas from Iran."
An agreement in the negotiation in the estimated $8 billion 2700-kilometer peace pipeline, that will take Iranian gas to Pakistan and from there to India, has been bogged down over a price formula between Iran and the other two parties who are asking for Iranian gas at cut-rate prices.

Nejad-Husseinian said last week that even if an agreement over the price formula is reached with Pakistan and India, Iran will not be able to meet their estimated 150 million cubic meters a day in gas demand. In the Nabucco project, the European Union has given its backing to the construction of a pipeline that will take gas from the Caspian Sea region - Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmanistan - to Western Europe through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria.

The construction of the 3,300 kilometer pipeline, at an estimated cost of $5.8 billion, is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2008 and is planned to go into commission in 2011. Iran holds the world's second largest gas reserves after Russia at around 26 trillion cubic meters. The country's daily gas production stands at 400 million cubic meters a day.

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