Bangladesh Showing Interest to Join Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Project

Bangladesh’s Minister of Finance Abu Maal Abdul Muhith said his country holds deep interest in joining a multi-billion-dollar project which is due to take Iran’s rich gas reserves to Pakistan and probably India.

“If Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline is expanded up to India we can join it,” the Bangladeshi finance minister said in the capital of Dhaka on Tuesday.

“Joining Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline project would give Bangladesh access to Iran’s gas and resolve its energy crisis,” Abdul Muhith said.

He noted Bangladesh has a natural gas deficit and at some point will have to import gas.

Iran and Pakistan officially inaugurated the construction phase of a gas pipeline project in March which is due to take Iran’s rich gas reserves to the energy-hungry South Asian nation.

The project kicked off in a ceremony attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari at the two countries’ shared border region in Iran’s Southeastern city of Chabahar.

The 2700-kilometer long pipeline was to supply gas for Pakistan and India which are suffering a lack of energy sources, but India has evaded talks. In 2011, Iran and Pakistan declared they would finalize the agreement bilaterally if India continued to be absent in the meeting.

Iran has already constructed more than 900 kilometers of the pipeline on its soil.

According to the project proposal, the pipeline will begin from Iran’s Assalouyeh Energy Zone in the south and stretch over 1,100 km through Iran. In Pakistan, it will pass through Baluchistan and Sindh but officials now say the route may be changed if China agrees to the project.