Pakistan agrees to price for IPI gas

The Pakistani ministers also stated that the country is determined to import gas regardless of whether India joins the project.

“The federal cabinet has approved a formula to purchase gas from Iran,” said Pakistani Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira in Islamabad on Wednesday.

Pakistan will import as much as 750 million cubic feet of gas per day from Iran to meet its growing energy needs, according to the Mehr News Agency.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said on December 29, 2008 that Iran and Pakistan will sign the IPI deal even if India continues to waver.

The Iran–Pakistan–India gas pipeline, also known as the IPI pipeline or the Peace Pipeline, is a proposed 2,775-kilometer pipeline to deliver natural gas from Iran to Pakistan and India.

The project is expected to greatly benefit India and Pakistan, which do not have sufficient natural gas to meet their rapidly increasing domestic demand for energy.

The negotiations over the project were initiated in 1994 but there are still several impediments to closing the three-way deal due to tension between India and Pakistan.

Plans to develop the $7.4 billion pipeline have limped along for decades due to concerns over security along the Pakistani route, pricing mechanisms, and the acrimonious relationship between Islamabad and New Delhi.

NK/MG/MRK/HG

END

MNA