TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The final half of a $1.2-billion pipeline transferring Turkmenistan's gas to neighboring Iran has been inaugurated, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Turkmen counterpart Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov flew to a gauging station in Sarakhs, Iran, near the Turkmen border to inaugurate the 48-inch diameter pipeline, IRNA reported.
The line is part of a major 1,059-kilometre (620-mile) gas pipeline which connects Tehran to the Khangiran refinery near the northeastern Iranian town of Sarakhs.
IRNA said the pipeline has an initial capacity of 20 million cubic meters per day (706 million cubic feet per day).
Iran’s state TV showed the two leaders jointly turning a spigot, symbolically starting the gas flow through the pipeline.
The inauguration of the pipeline allows the energy-rich Central Asian nation to increase natural gas deliveries to Iran. The pipeline is a key step toward diversifying Turkmen gas export routes and turning Iran into a regional gas hub.
Iran pushed for the new pipeline to ensure delivery of gas to avoid shortages in winter.
Dozens of people froze to death in 2007 winter in Iran because of natural gas cuts from Turkmenistan that left them without heat in their homes.
While Iran buys gas from Turkmenistan to supply domestic needs in northeastern Iran, it also exports some of its own gas production to neighboring Turkey in the northwest.
