Translated material
Gas pipeline in parts
Iran, Pakistan and India will not create a single consortium to build the pipeline
There will be no single consortium to implement the largest infrastructure project in Southeast Asia - the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline. As foreign news agencies reported last Friday, citing the Ministry of Oil and Gas of Pakistan, Islamabad will officially start construction on its territory in September 2009. Meanwhile, according to unofficial data, Iran has already begun work on laying a pipe to the border with Pakistan. At the first stage, it will serve as gasification for the south-eastern provinces of the country, and later will allow exporting up to 55 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Pakistan and India. However, so far there are no agreements between Tehran and New Delhi regarding the terms of gas cooperation (volumes and, most importantly, prices of supplies). Moreover, Washington is increasingly hinting that cooperation with the disgraced Iran could cost India too much - from sanctions against companies involved in the construction and operation of the gas pipeline, to the abandonment of the nuclear energy agreement concluded a year ago by the US and the Indian governments (it allows Delhi to gain access to nuclear technology and nuclear fuel, despite the fact that India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty).Pakistani government sources claim that the construction plan for the project has already been approved. Completion is scheduled for 2011, and the gas pipeline is expected to be put into operation in the summer of 2014. “Construction of the Pakistani section of the gas pipeline (about 655 km at a cost of $2.64 billion) will be carried out by private companies, with the main sponsor of the project to be named in agreement with the National Gas Company of Iran in June 2007,” the Indo-Asian News Service quotes a representative ministries. Work on the Iranian section (1092 km worth almost $4 billion), which will later be connected to the Pakistani section, has already begun.
In February this year, after holding a series of negotiations with Pakistan and Iran, India announced its readiness to begin work on its section of the gas pipeline in the near future. Although there are still serious disagreements between the gas supplier and the gas buyer on the price of gas. The length of the Indian section will be 344 km with a total cost of $600 million.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the US Congress Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Lantos last week introduced a bill, the introduction of which could prevent oil and gas companies from participating in the FPI project, as well as negatively affect cooperation in the field of nuclear energy between the two countries. The essence of the proposed bill is to introduce additional restrictions on any cooperation projects with Iran, the cost of which will exceed $20 million. In addition, the proposed bill would prohibit any cooperation in the field of nuclear energy between the United States and third countries if the third countries interact with Iran in this industry.