TEHRAN, Nov. 3 (Mehr News Agency) - It will cost Iran $5 billion to construct the pipeline that carries its gas to Turkey and Europe, said the deputy petroleum minister for gas affairs here on Saturday.
Talking to MNA, Seyyed Reza Kassaeizadeh added that Iran is to export 110 million cubic meters of gas to Turkey per day.
The project will be done according to the build-own-operate (BOO) scheme, he added.
The official said that the private sector is in charge of operating the plan and will be allotted some privileges from National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) for services it offers.
Iran and Turkey signed a 25-year, $30 billion contract in 1996.
The contract went into effect on December 10, 2001 and Iran has exported 20.74 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Turkey since then.
The figure stood at 18.8 billion cubic meters until the end of the past Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2007), 1.7 billion cubic meters of which pertained to the first quarter of the current year.
Iran excludes dollar in 85% of oil deals
TEHRAN, Nov. 3 (Mehr News Agency) - Some 85 percent of Iran's oil revenue is not in dollar, said a National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) official here on Saturday.
Talking to MNA, Mohammad-Ali Khatibi added that Iran has recently asked the purchasers to pay in major currencies other than dollar.
Referring to Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) 500,000 barrel hike in daily output, he noted that since the consumer countries altered their policies, the extra production has had no effect on oil market so far.
"Iran needs to reduce its dollar dependence to suffer less damage," the official said.
... Payvand News - 11/3/07 ... --
