Iran Planning to Boost Gas Supplies to Asian Markets

16:10 | 2010-04-12

TEHRAN (FNA)- The multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline project for transferring Iran's natural gas to Pakistan would also provide Asian markets with better access to Iran's rich energy resources, a senior Iranian oil official said on Monday.

"Construction and operation of the peace pipeline will pave the ground for selling Iran's gas to the East Asian states, specially to the populated countries of China and India," Managing Director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) Seyed Reza Kassaeizadeh said.

Iran sits on the world's second largest reserves of both oil and gas.

Pointing to Iran and Pakistan's negotiations over the project, Kassaeizadeh said that the design and construction phases for the pipeline's remaining parts on Iranian side will be started early in May, 2010.

"We hope that the designing of the pipeline would be finished this year and the construction phase would be started," the official added.

Kassaeizadeh underlined that exports of Iran's gas to India and China would be possible if only Islamabad agrees to the transit of Iran's gas supplies through its territories and ensures security of the pipeline.

In March, Tehran and Islamabad signed a final agreement to launch implementation of a project for exporting Iran's rich gas reserves to the energy-hungry south-Asian nation through the long-waited multi-billion-dollar pipeline.

The 2700-kilometer long pipeline was to supply gas for Pakistan and India which are suffering a lack of energy sources, but India has evaded talks. Last year Iran and Pakistan declared they would finalize the agreement bilaterally if India continued to be absent in the meetings.

In a major breakthrough on March 20, 2009, the Pakistani government approved Iran's proposed pricing formula for gas supplies to the South Asian nation.

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 meters of natural gas per annum, which is expected to be later raised to 55 billion cubic meters. It is expected to cost $7.4 billion.

Source: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8901231435

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