Pakistani Oil Minister Reiterates Necessity of IP Gas Pipeline

Pakistan’s Federal Minister of Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi underlined that the new government of Pakistan will honor the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline deal.
“Islamabad is firmly committed to completing a multi-billion-dollar pipeline projected to carry natural gas from Iran to its eastern neighbor,” Khaqan Abbasi said.

Last week, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Azaz Ahmed Chaudhry underlined that the new government of Pakistan will honor the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline deal.

“The project to transfer Iranian natural gas to Pakistan needs to be implemented, one way or another, to settle the energy crisis in the country,” Ahmed Chaudhry said in his weekly press conference in Islamabad on Thursday.

The Pakistani diplomat noted that Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline is the key option to relieve energy shortages in Pakistan.

Iran and Pakistan in March officially inaugurated the construction phase of a gas pipeline project 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.

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.

Iran has already built 900 kilometers of the pipeline on its soil and is helping to build the 700-kilometer side of the pipeline on the Pakistani side.