The director of Iranian Gas Engineering and Development Company (IGEDC) announced the completion of the gas pipeline to Iraq. Fars news agency reported.
"The laying of gas pipeline from Iran to Iraq is now completed and leak detection tests are underway." Alireza Gharibi stated.
"We are fully operational from the technical side," said Gharibi. "Given the current political insecurity in the region, however, the two countries agreed to delay exports to the second quarter of 2015."
The IS militant group occupied crucial sections of Syria over the past year and more recently seized vast areas of Iraq, driving more than a million people out of their homes in Iraq.
Iraq will be the second destination for Iranian gas after Turkey. Iraq aims to increase gas imports in order to fuel power plants such as Almansoureh.
The agreement for Iran to export gas to Iraq was drafted in 2012 during the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second term. The agreement was finalized in July 2012 in Baghdad between National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Iraq's oil ministry.
During early negotiations, Iran was to pump 25 million cubic meters of gas per day to Iraq, but the two countries later agreed to increase this figure to 40 million cubic meters per day.
Iranian officials recently announced that gas exports to Iraq will reach 90 million cubic meters per day, to be delivered in two stages. This will bring in $17 billion in annual revenues.
The 270 kilometer pipeline stretches from Charmaleh, a village located in the western province of Kermanshah in Iran, to Naft Shahr, a town bordering Iraq.
Gas will be exported to Iraq via one of the main pipelines of South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf.
A 142 kilometer pipeline is under construction in the second phase of Iran's gas exports to Iraq to supply the fuel of the power plants in Basra City in southern Iraq.
