Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:23:46 GMT
While Pakistan has been facing an electricity shortfall of more than 3,000 megawatts leading to frequent and long blackouts in the country, it has been under pressure from Washington to abandon the deal.
While Pakistan has been facing an electricity shortfall of more than 3,000 megawatts leading to frequent and long blackouts in the country, it has been under pressure from Washington to abandon the deal.
The Iranian and Pakistani technical experts are scheduled to hold talks in Islamabad to review implementation on a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline deal.
The initial agreement of the $7.5 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, also known as the Peace Pipeline, was signed in Tehran in May between the Iranian and Pakistani presidents.
Hojatollah Ghanimifard, the Iranian oil minister's special representative in the pipeline talks, says the five-day meeting will begin on August 10 to discuss "technical elements of gas exports to Pakistan".
Ghanimifard told Mehr news agency that based on the initial deal Iranian gas should be pumped into Pakistan within a four and a half year period once a contract is signed.
Iran says that via the pipeline it will deliver eight billion cubic meters of natural gas to Pakistan annually.
The Iranian official also confirmed that the two sides along with Russian Gazprom Company will come together in Tehran to negotiate on construction of the pipeline.
Ghanimifard says "The Pakistani side announced its readiness to participate in the trilateral meeting."
“Both we and Pakistan are talking with Gazprom and we have agreed that Gazprom can be a partner in the construction of the pipeline inside Pakistan,” he told the Financial Times early July.
Ghanimifard emphasized that India still has an option to join the project, although the country has so far not been included in the gas pipeline project.
Pakistan -- facing an energy crisis -- plans to generate 4,600 megawatts of electricity with Iranian natural gas.
