Iran to approve Pakistan gas deal this week
Business Sunday, June 6th, 2010Iran hopes to finalise a deal this week for a much-delayed pipeline to export natural gas to Pakistan by 2015, an energy official said on Sunday.
‘The $7-billion Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline contract will be finalised this week, and based on the approved time framework the export of gas to Pakistan will be launched by the end of 2015,’ said Hojjatollah Qanimifard, deputy director in charge of investment at the National Iranian Oil Company.
‘In a meeting in Tehran on Tuesday (June 8), the final approval on pipeline by the NIOC board of directors will be delivered to Pakistani officials and their letter of guarantee will be received,’ he said in the comments on semi-official news agency ILNA.
The project is crucial for Pakistan to avert a growing energy crisis already causing severe electricity shortages in the country of about 170 million.
The pipeline will connect Iran’s giant South Fars gas field with Pakistan’s southern Baluchistan and Sindh provinces. Iran has the world’s second-largest gas reserves after Russia. But sanctions by the West, political turmoil and construction delays have slowed its development as an exporter.
Dubbed the ‘peace pipeline,’ the project has been planned since the 1990s and originally would have extended from Pakistan to India.
However, India has been reluctant to join the project given its long-running distrust of Pakistan, with which it has fought three wars since they achieved independence in 1947.
Under a deal signed in March, Pakistan will be allowed to charge a transit fee if the proposed pipeline is eventually extended to India.
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on Jun 6 2010. Filed under