After sanctions are gone: Pakistan to complete IP pipeline in 30 months

Govt has allocated Rs25b this year for gas infrastructure building

ISLAMABAD: The government is actively pursuing efforts aimed at starting practical work on the much-awaited Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project, say officials in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources.

"Work on the decades-old multibillion-dollar Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (Tapi) gas pipeline project has already entered practical phase in Pakistan and the government is making efforts to start work on the IP project soon," they said while talking to APP.

They pointed out that work on the IP project could not be initiated due to international sanctions on Iran, however, Pakistan was ready to complete its part of the gas pipeline within 30 months once the restrictions were lifted.



The government has allocated Rs25 billion in the current fiscal year for the development of gas infrastructure across the country including the IP project.

Pakistan is keen on early implementation of the project and has requested Iran for amendment to the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) to complete the pipeline in an extended period.

Sharing details of the project, the officials recalled that Pakistan and Iran signed the Inter-governmental Framework Declaration on May 24, 2009 whereas GSPA was reached in June 2009.

Subsequently, Pakistan issued sovereign guarantees on May 28, 2010. Project consultant was appointed on April 11, 2011 while the design, feasibility and route survey and other formalities were completed on September 8, 2012.



The pipeline will begin from Iran's South Pars gas field and end at Nawabshah, covering a distance of around 1,931 km with 1,150 km in Iran and 781 km in Pakistan.

Implementation is to be done on the basis of segmented approach whereby each country will be responsible for construction of the pipeline in its respective territory. A flow of around 750 million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) in the pipeline is projected to help generate around 4,000 megawatts of electricity along with creating job opportunities in backward areas of Balochistan and Sindh.



Commenting on the Tapi project, the officials said the process of front-end engineering and design (FEED) route survey was formally inaugurated in Pakistan last week.

Under the project, a 1,680km-long pipeline, having capacity to deliver 3.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, would be completed by 2020.

From the pipeline, Pakistan and India will get 1.325bcfd each while Afghanistan's share will be 0.5bcfd.