Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

Iran's electricity network has integrated to power grids of seven neighboring countries to meet their energy demands, says Iranian Energy Minister Majid Namjou.

Iran's electricity grid is currently connected to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, Namjou told IRNA on Sunday.

Tehran's imports have passed $24.2 billion in the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21), Iran's Customs says.

New data show the country's imports increased by 22.2 percent between March and August compared with the corresponding figure last year, Mehr news agency reported.

Russian oil giant Lukoil says it will pump oil from the 12.9 billion-barrel West Qurna-2 field in Iraq's Basra province beginning in 2013.

According to Leonid Fedun, the 52-year-old vice-president of Lukoil, Russia's largest independent crude producer will carry out the project over the next three years, RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Twelve Iranian companies are among the participants in the 19th Urumqi Trade Fair in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

“Tehran and Beijing will soon witness a boost and promotion in economic cooperation, given the strides taken in the expansion of relations between the two countries,” IRNA quoted Chinese Ambassador to Iran Xie Xiaoyan as saying in Urumqi on Thursday.

A South Korean company has won a contract worth $1.46 billion to construct the world's largest desalination plant in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi state-owned Saline Water Conversion Corp notified Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction on winning the contract on Wednesday and said the plant will be launched by January 2014.

Iran has produced more than 16 million tons of petrochemical products in the first five months of the Iranian year (March 21 - August 21, 2010).

Iran exported 7.14 million tons of petrochemicals, worth $4.2 billion, and some 2.8 million tons of the produced petrochemicals were sold in domestic markets, according to a report published on the Oil Ministry's official website SHANA.

A senior official in Iran's Energy Ministry says the country ranks eighth among world countries that have the capability to construct gas power plants.

Iran has successfully managed to develop the advanced technology to build gas power plants and compete with the developed countries in this field, Iranian Deputy Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian said on Tuesday.

The United States plans to strike a 60-billion-dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the largest foreign arms sale by the United States.

The deal adds 30 billion dollar worth of Apache and Black Hawk attack helicopters to a package that already included 84 F-15 fighter jets.

An Iranian Oil Ministry official says the country's natural gas flow to Turkey would be resumed within the next seven days after it halted because of an explosion on August 25.

The overnight blast, allegedly carried out by the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), forced Turkish authorities to shut down the conduit in the country's eastern province of Agri, which borders Iran.

Iran plans to pump more crude from three oil fields shared with Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf, an Iranian energy official says.

The oil-rich country is scheduled to increase its oil production of the fields by 30,000 barrels per day or 20 percent, Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh, managing director of Iran's Offshore Oil Company (IOOC), told Mehr news agency on Sunday.