Date: 02 Mar 2000
Time: 07:46:12
Remote Name: 156.29.145.175
Middle East Economic Digest March 3, 2000 IRAN IN BRIEF Thu Mar 2 01:58:51 2000
Copyright 2000 EMAP Business International Ltd Middle East Economic Digest
March 3, 2000
SECTION: IN BRIEF; IRAN; Pg. 23
LENGTH: 345 words
HEADLINE: IN BRIEF
DATELINE: IRAN
BODY: * The European ABB Alstom Power has a contract to supply a compressor station near Tabriz for the 1,300-kilometre Tabriz-Ankara gas pipeline now under construction. The company will supply three 13-MW cyclone turbines with compressors to the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC). Under an agreement with Turkey's state pipeline company Botas, NIGC will also have to set up a gas measurement station by July 2001; the two sides were holding talks in late February for an operational agreement (MEED 25:2:00). * Storage capacity at the main oil export terminal at Kharg island is being expanded to hold 10 days worth of exports, according to Hojatollah Ghanimi Fard, deputy head of NIOC International. Construction work related to the expansion means tankers are being used to store some crude, he said. Crude exports from Kharg have been averaging just over 2 million barrels a day (b/d) since early 1999; the terminal has an export capacity of about 5 million b/d.
* The first city line of the Tehran underground railway network was opened on 21 February, more than two decades after it was designed by French firms. The 10-kilometere line connects south Tehran to a terminal in the west; a 40-kilometre rapid transit line from the terminal to the western suburb of Karaj was opened in 1999. The new line was opened by President Khatami and visiting Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Tang Jiaxuan. A Chinese consortium of China North Industries Corporation, China National Technology Import & Export Corporation and China International Trust & Investment Corporation was awarded a $550 million contract in the mid-1990s to complete the scheme. The trains were supplied by Changchun Rolling Stock Works.
* Salzgitter Anlagenbau of Germany has chosen a Swiss subsidiary of Kvaerner Process Technology as subcontractor for a phosgene generator for an engineering polymers plant at Bandar Khomeini. The generator will have a capacity of 11,500 tonnes a year. Salzgitter's contract was awarded in mid-1999 (Petrochemicals,
MEED Special Report, 19:11:99, page 9).