Mubarak, Abdallah Open Gas Pipeline

AQABA, Jordan, 28 July 2003 — King Abdallah of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak opened an underwater pipeline for a one-billion-dollar gas project between their countries in this Red Sea port yesterday. The two leaders arrived by boat from the Egyptian resort of Taba where they held an earlier official opening ceremony for the first phase of the project which is to be extended elsewhere in the Middle East and Europe. The pipeline, 270 kilometers (167 miles) in length, passes 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) under the Red Sea between the two coastal resorts, allowing Jordan to receive some 1.1 billion cubic meters of Egyptian liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year.