AMMAN, June 17: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are forging ahead with implementation of an envisioned $1 billion Middle East natural gas pipeline project from Egypt, officials said on Monday.

A ministerial level meeting ended two-days of talks on Sunday with an accord to set up two firms to oversee the ambitious natural gas pipeline stretching from Egypt to Turkey with a feed to Cyprus and eventually to Eastern Europe.

“The project is beginning to take shape and the picture is becoming clearer...We have embarked on concrete steps in implementing the Arab gas network,” Egypt’s Oil Minister Sameh Fahmy told Reuters at the end of the meeting.

Last year Egypt — with abundant proven reserves estimated at 55 trillion cubic feet — reached an agreement with Jordan, Syria and Lebanon to build a pipeline to supply them with gas.

The project would also boost inter-Arab economic integration by reducing reliance on heavy fuel now firing power grids and switching to cheaper and more economic gas.

The four signatories to the pact agreed to set up an Arab Gas Authority to start its work next September in Beirut with the task of coordinating the work of the private developers of the pipeline and regulating pricing mechanisms.

The other firm the Arab Company for the Transport and Marketing of Gas, with equal equity holdings by the four signatories would finance, construct and manage the stretch of the gas pipeline from the Jordanian Syrian border to Turkey and Cyprus.

Agreement was reached that the firm would start work in four months in Damascus.

Egypt has begun since March the construction of the first phase of the network, a $230 million pipeline from Arish in Sinai to Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba.—Reuters