ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The federal government is actively pursuing to start practical work on the much-awaited Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project, official sources in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources said Tuesday.
“The practical work on decades old multi-billion dollars Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project has already entered its practical phase in Pakistan, and the government is making efforts to start work on the IP project soon,” they told the state-run news agency in Islamabad.
The sources informed that the work on IP project could not be initiated due to international sanctions on Iran, however, Pakistan was ready to complete the gas pipeline within 30 months in its part once the sanctions on Iran were lifted.
Replying to a question, they said the government had allocated Rs 25 billion in the current fiscal year for the development of gas infrastructure across the country including the IP project.
The sources said Pakistan was keen in early implementation on the project and it had requested Iran for amendment in the Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) to complete the gas pipeline in an extended period.
Sharing details of the project, they said Inter-Governmental Framework Declaration was signed between the two countries on May 24, 2009 while GSPA had reached on June 2009.
Subsequently, Pakistan issued sovereign guarantee on May 28, 2010. Project consultant was appointed on April 11, 2011 while the design, feasibility, route survey and other formalities of the project were completed on September 8, 2012.
The 56-inch diameter pipeline will initiate from South Pars gas field Iran and end at Nawabshah covering a distance of around 1,931 kilometer with 1,150 km portion in Iran and 781 km in Pakistan.
The implementation is to be done on the basis of a segmented approach whereby each country will be responsible for construction of pipeline in the respective territory.
Around 750 mmcfd gas flow in the pipeline is projected to help generate around 4,000 MW electricity also, along with creating job opportunities in backward areas of Balochistan and Sindh.
Commenting on the TAPI project, the sources said the process of initiating front-end-engineering-and-design (FEED) route survey was formally inaugurated in Pakistan last week.
Under the project, they said, a 56-inch diameter 1,680 kilometers pipeline, having capacity to flow 3.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan up to Pak-India border would be completed by the year 2020.
From the TAPI pipeline, Pakistan and India would get 1.325 (billion cubic feet per day) bcfd gas each, while Afghanistan’s share would be 0.5 bcfd gas.
