British firm Gulf Utilities Company (GUC) said Thursday it was close to securing an agreement with Kuwait to build a 540 km (864 mile) pipeline pumping water from Iran.
The project would offer "significant economic, environmental and conservation benefits to the Kuwaitis," the company said in a statement.
A spokesman for Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, adviser to the GUC, told AFP that the company had approached several international construction groups with a view to finding a major contractor for the project.
GUC said that the project would cost an estimated two billion pounds (3.2 billion euros, $2.9 billion) and would be due for completion in 2005.
The company said it had an exclusivity agreement with the Kuwaiti Ministry to pump water to Kuwait at a cost "substantially below" existing desalination costs.
GUC said it had presented its proposed 30-year tariffs for the finance and construction of the pipeline to the Kuwaiti Ministry on Wednesday.
The pipeline would transport water from the Karkeh Dam in northern Iraq -- the third-largest in the world -- and transport it 330 km through Iran and 210 km under the Gulf to Kuwait, the firm said.
The group's partners in the Gulf include Energy Investment Company in Tehran and the Gulf Water Company in Kuwait.—AFP.
©0—Agence France Presse 2001.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
