Reza Kasaizadeh told reporters that Irans refineries were treating more than 400 million cubic meters per day of gas for household, commercial, industrial and power plant purposes. “Our gas consumption did not go beyond 409 million cubic meters a day this year and we predict that the figure would reach 497 million cubic meters next year,” he said. Kasaizadeh, also managing-director of the National Iranian Gas Company, said statistics indicated that Iran should raise its gas capacity by 55 million cubic meters per year. “The National Iranian Gas Company has to invest around 16 billion dollars by the end of the fourth five-year economic development plan,” he said. “We have to make our investments under BOT and BOO schemes,” he added. “Finance is not a good method for gas projects and we have to apply buy-back scheme,” Kasaizadeh said. “We should also tap the Oil Stabilization Fund for our gas projects.” “Our only hurdle to the projects is lack of financial resources,” the official stated. Regarding Irans gas exports to Georgia, he said Iran pumped two million cubic meters per day of gas to this country temporarily. He noted that Iran was now exporting no gas to this country. As for gas exports to Turkey, Kasaizadeh said: “We are obliged to export 27 million cubic meters per day of gas to Turkey. The figure stands currently at 23 million cubic meters.” He also said that Iran-Armenia gas pipeline will be constructed by 2007.