Azeris to start constructing new pipeline

Azeri state oil company SOCAR plans to start constructing a new natural gas pipeline in 2010, it stated on February 16. It will be 200 km long and will pump extra1.8 million cubic metres of Azeri gas to Iran daily.

The first Iran-Azerbaijan connecting pipeline was built in the seventies of the last century and has been functioning almost 40 years. On January 13, 2010 a short term cooperation agreement between Iran and Azerbaijan was signed. Negotiations on long term cooperation are currently underway.

Azerbaijan presently exports 4.6 million cubic metres of natural gas a day. Of this Georgia receives 1.9 million cubic metres, Russia 1.5 mln and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan 1.2 mln, via Iran.