Iran–Armenia gas pipeline
The Iran–Armenia gas pipeline is a long pipeline from Iran to Armenia. The long Iranian section runs from Tabriz to the Iran–Armenia border. The Armenian section runs from the Meghri region to Kajaran, and another of pipeline is planned to reach the center of the country, where it will link up with the existing distribution network. History The plans to build the pipeline was initially announced on 15 April 2002 by Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisian. It started operations on 20 December 2006, and was officially inaugurated by the Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Robert Kocharyan of Armenia on 19 March 2007. There are discussions to build a second pipeline from Iran to Armenia. Technical features The pipeline diameter is and it cost about US$220 million. The initial capacity of pipeline is 1.1 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year, which will be increased up to 2.3 bcm by 2019. The contract was signed for 20 years. For each cubic meter of the Iranian gas, Armenia is supposed to return 3 kwh of electric energy to Iran. Political controversy Many suspect that the pipeline's diameter was reduced from under pressure from Gazprom, which purchased a majority share