Oil ministers of India and Pakistan announced on Friday that they had resolved several outstanding issues on the $7.5 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project and predicted it would start supplying natural gas by 2012. Construction work on the project will begin next year, they said.
The ministers said the project would supply 2.46 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day from the South Paras gas field in Iran on a 50-50 sharing basis between India and Pakistan.
The announcement was made by Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Khwaja Muhammad Asif and Indian Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora at a joint press conference in Islamabad after meetings between the two sides. The announcement came a day after the 10th steering committee of oil ministers from Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on Thursday agreed to start construction work on the much-delayed TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipeline project in 2010.
Deora said details of the project would be finalised once the ministers met their respective governments. Khwaja Asif said Pakistan’s share of the cost of the project would be $3 billion.
“There are many offers for financing this project,” said the Pakistani minister, adding that technical details including issues of security of the pipeline would be dealt with by the company that would be set up to build and operate it.
{{/usCountry}}“There are many offers for financing this project,” said the Pakistani minister, adding that technical details including issues of security of the pipeline would be dealt with by the company that would be set up to build and operate it.
{{/usCountry}}The pipeline would go through Nawabshah in the Sindh province of Pakistan and end at Jaisalmer in India, officials said.