French gas utility Gaz de France ( GDF) announced Thursday in an interview with French financial daily La Tribune it would invest 1.5 billion euros in two gas pipeline projects linking Europe to Algeria by 2007 and to Iran by 2015.

It will finance 12 percent of Medgaz - linking Spain and Algeria from 2007 - at a cost of 640 million euros to make Algeria "its second supplier, equal with Russia" by 2010, said La Tribune in its Thursday edition.

"We have obtained the agreement from Algerian authorities and we'll sign the contract in coming days," GDF chief executive Jean- Francois Cirelli said.

The 747-kilometer Medgaz Mediterranean pipeline, when finished in 2007, can transport between eight and 10 billion cubic meters of gas. It is then due to start supplying Spain with four billion cubic meters per year.

The project is led by a consortium of companies grouping Algerian Sonatrach (20 percent of the capital), Spanish Cepsa (20 percent), Endesa (12 percent) and Iberdrola (12 percent), French GDF (12 percent) and British BP (12 percent).

The GDF also planned to invest 4.6 billion euros to finance 30 percent of the 3,300-km Nabucco gas pipeline in Nabucco, linking Caspian Sea deposits and Iranian reserves and Austria and allowing delivery of up to 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Europe, according to Cirelli.

Source: Xinhua