ISLAMABAD, April 28: Islamabad on Friday enhanced its gas off-take requirement to 2.6 billion cubic feet per day (BCFD) from the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project because of higher expected shortage in the country.
Pakistan had originally sought 2.1BCFD of gas from Iran for its domestic requirement, which was updated to 2.6BCFD on Friday at the first round of three-day meeting of the project’s joint working group, sources told Dawn.
Petroleum Secretary Ahmad Waqar and Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Nejad Hosnienian led their sides at the seventh meeting of the group.
The two sides observed with satisfaction considerable progress on the project and reiterated their desire to realise it at the earliest, a statement said.
They “discussed in detail the technical, financial and legal aspects of the project, which included the gas pricing, pipeline routing, structure, gas qualities and build-up,” it added.
The sources said the two sides agreed that capacity of the pipeline could be no more than 3.2BCFD, of which sizable quantities would be required by Iran for its eastern provinces bordering Balochistan.
They said preliminary discussions were held on pricing structure, off-take volumes and detailed feasibility and structure of the project.
Detailed talks on the issues would be held on Saturday and Sunday.
The sources said the detailed feasibility study of the project would be conducted once technical issues relating to pipeline route alignment and off-take volumes were finalised.
The two sides agreed to convene a trilateral meeting of technical experts in the third week of May in Islamabad to try to finalise details of the tripartite framework agreement to be signed in June at the ministerial meeting of the three countries in Tehran.
The sources said Pakistan and Iran were pursuing a two-track policy so that the project could be implemented bilaterally in case India dropped out. So far, India had shown willingness to be part of the project, they said.
They termed speculative reports suggesting that Islamabad was planning to lay a pipeline from Iranian to Indian border, saying even the delivery points of gas had not been finalised both in Pakistan and India.
Pakistan and Iran would further deliberate upon two gas pricing formulas presented by the respective sides, the sources said.
If the pipeline route envisaged reasonable gas supplies for Iran’s eastern provinces, it would proportionately reduce the price for Pakistan, they said.
ISLAMABAD, April 28: Islamabad on Friday enhanced its gas off-take requirement to 2.6 billion cubic feet per day (BCFD) from the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project because of higher expected shortage in the country.
