Qasr-e Shirin, Kermanshah province - Gilan-e Gharb Governor Ardeshir Rostami said on Saturday the Iran started the construction Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline from Gilan-e Gharb.
He made the remarks in the project executive coordination ceremony in presence of agents of all organizations involved in the project.
Rostami described the project as important for Iran politically and socio-economically and said the project has already started from Kuhdasht and reached Gilan-e Gharb to pass the border to Iraqi capital Baghdad.
He said the length of the gas pipeline will be 225 kilometers and it will be completed by June 2013 with an investment of three billion dollars.
The oil ministers of Iraq, Iran and Syria had signed a preliminary agreement for a $10 billion natural-gas-pipeline deal on July 25, 2011, at Assaluyeh industrial region located in the southern province of Bushehr.
Iranian oil officials then said Syria would purchase between 20 million to 25 million cubic meters a day of Iranian gas while Iraq had also already signed a deal with Tehran to purchase up to 25 million cubic meters a day to feed its power stations.
The main project, 1,500 km length of piping Assaluyeh gas to Damascus requires dlrs $10 billion investment.
The pipeline will transfer a capacity of 110 million cubic meters of natural gas a day to Damascus.
The gas will be produced from the Iranian South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, which Iran shares with Qatar, and holds estimated reserves of 16 trillion cubic meters of recoverable gas.
Iranian officials have said that Tehran also aims to extend the pipeline to Lebanon and the Mediterranean to supply gas to Europe.
© IRNA 2012
