Iran says Armenia is not ready to receive gas

"The Armenian side asked for a meeting in late March to discuss the project and issues of energy supply from Armenia to Iran," the Iranian spokesman said, assuring that Iran fulfilled all its obligations on construction of the pipeline and is ready to start gas supply to Armenia at any time.

Contractor of the pipeline construction, Armenian High-Voltage Electric Networks Company, announced earlier that the completion of the construction works in the Armenian section of the gas pipeline was scheduled for December 20, 2006, after that the gas was supposed to come to Armenia, however, after Armenia's Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan visited Iran on December 17, the Armenian and Iranian parties announced that the time of commissioning the pipeline was postponed till spring 2007.

The gas pipeline that connects Iran and Armenia has a diameter of 700 mm, its planned annual capacity is 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas. Initially, amount of the gas sent to Armenia will be 1.1 billion cubic meters, since 2019 it will reach 2.3 billion cubic meters.

The contract was signed for 20 years. To reach the planned amount, the Armenian side is planned to lay some more 197 km of the pipe. For each cubic meter of the Iranian gas Armenia is supposed to return 3 kwh of electric energy. - www.iranoilgas.com