TEHRAN (FNA)- Tehran has expressed serious concerns over the security situation in Pakistan and asked Islamabad to make security a part of the multibillion-dollar pipeline which is due to take Iran's rich energy reserves to the energy hungry Pakistan and India.
Sources in the Petroleum Ministry told Daily Times on Sunday that along with the other demands regarding the IPI project, Iran had demanded from Pakistan to include a provision on security in the Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) for the gas pipeline project.
They said that with such a provision in the IPI gas pipeline project, Tehran would be able to suspend gas supply to Pakistan in case of "a security incident" in the country.
The sources claimed that Pakistan had earlier assured Iran in writing it would provide security to the IPI pipeline. However, the Iranian government had now raised a fresh demand for security.
They said that a 900-kilometer long pipeline would be laid in Pakistan to transmit gas imported from Iran to the Indian border. They said that a 787-kilometer long pipeline would be laid in (the Pakistani province of) Baluchistan, while a 113-kilometer pipeline would pass through Nawabshah district in Sindh to the Indian border.
The sources said India wanted the entry point of the gas supply on the Indo-Pak border, but Pakistan insisted on the supply of gas on the Pak-Iran border.
Iran has also asked Pakistan to link the revision of gas prices with changes in gas prices in international markets, the sources said. Earlier, Iran had agreed in the GSPA draft to link the gas price with the Japan Crude Cocktail, which gets revised after four years.
Iran and Pakistan have initiated a Gas Sales Purchase Agreement. India and Pakistan have also resolved all bilateral issues including transit fee which saw New Delhi boycotting IPI pipeline talks for about a year.
India has more or less agreed to give Pakistan a transit fee of $200 million per year, which is equivalent to $0.60 per million British thermal unit for allowing passage of the pipeline through that country.
India and Pakistan finally agreed in February 2007 to pay Iran $4.93 per million British thermal units ($4.67/GJ) but some details relating to price adjustment remained open to further negotiation. There was a breakthrough in the talks in April 2008 when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Pakistan and India.
According to the project proposal, the pipeline will begin from Iran's Assalouyeh Energy Zone in the south and stretch over 1,100 km through Iran. In Pakistan, it will pass through Baluchistan and Sindh but officials now say the route may be changed if China agrees to the project.
The gas will be supplied from the South Pars field. The initial capacity of the pipeline will be 22 billion cubic meter of natural gas per annum, which is expected to be later raised to 55 billion cubic meter. It is expected to cost $7.4 billion.
According to Indian ministry sources, the IPI gas pipeline is quite crucial for New Delhi as after signing of the agreement, 60 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) of gas is expected to be supplied in phase-I, which will be shared equally between India and Pakistan.
In phase-II, 90 mmscmd of gas will be supplied to India and Pakistan. So far six meetings of the trilateral joint working group (JWG) of the participating countries have been held with the last meeting being held in New Delhi on June 28-29, 2007.
India, Asia's third-largest economy, can produce only half the gas it needs to generate electricity, causing blackouts and curbing economic growth. Demand may more than double to 400 million cubic meters a day by 2025 if the economy grows at the projected rate of 7 to 8 percent a year, according to the Indian oil ministry.
Iran plans to start exporting gas to Pakistan in 2011. Iran has completed half the pipeline, which can carry 110 million cubic meters of gas a day, National Iranian Gas Company (NIOC) said in April. India uses about 108 million cubic meters of gas a day, according to a BP Plc report.
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