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Iran and Turkey strike pipe deal



By Upstream staff 

Iran and Turkey have agreed on a joint scheme to export Iranian natural gas to Europe via Turkish pipelines, Tehran's Oil Minister, Seyed Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh, said today.

Iran has been considering Ukraine and Turkey as possible routes to Europe. In July last year it announced a preliminary agreement with Ukraine to use its pipelines.

"We agreed to increase the capacity of Iran's pipeline that connects to Turkey's pipeline and jointly export gas to Europe," Vaziri-Hamaneh was quoted by the oil ministry website as saying.

Apart from using the 5 billion cubic metres per day of vacant capacity in Turkey's pipelines, Hamaneh referred to the proposed Nabucco pipeline as a second means to pump gas through Turkey.

"The Nabucco pipeline has 90 million cubic metres (per day) of capacity and 30% to 50% of its capacity will be allocated to Iran (for its gas exports)," Hamaneh said.

He said the two neighbouring countries could not agree on building a new pipeline to take Iran's gas to Europe's consumers.

The Nabucco pipeline project, backed by the European Union partly as a means to diversify away from reliance on Russia by gaining access to central Asian gas, aims to extend pipelines from Turkey to Hungary and Austria through the eastern Balkans.


Friday, 18 August, 2006, 13:52 GMT  | last updated: Friday, 18 August, 2006, 13:52 GMT

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