The Oil Drum

The large oil fields in Iran's Khuzestan province are pipelined to the major refineries in the north near the Caspian coast (Tabriz and Reyy), and also to the large oil shipping terminals of the Persian gulf.  So relatively little additional pipeline is required to complete an Azeri or even a Kazakh route to the Persian gulf via Iran.

The 386 km the Asia Times article talks about is to to tap these northern Iranian refineries (which are connected to the southern producing fields) to the Kazakhstan-China pipeline, thus enabling Iran to sell to China via pipeline instead of via sea.  

The website Rigzone.com has maps of the Iranian/Caspian pipeline system (and many other regions as well).  But they are difficult to read since they are meant to be ordered.

I completely agree with the potential impact of the opening of the Tehran (Euro-based) oil exchange in March '06 on the U.S. dollar. Yet another consequence of the way we chose to play the Caspian pipeline game.

(I wonder what history books will write about the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and whether it was worth all this.)