TEHRAN/NEW DELHI: Iran has formally signed a $7.6-billion cross-border pipeline deal to supply 750 million cubic feet of natural gas daily to Pakistan from mid-2014, ignoring India that was part of the original plan conceived in the 1990s.
The pipeline will connect Iran's giant South Pars gas fields with Pakistan's restive Balochistan province in the southwest and Sindh in the south. Once the gas starts flowing in, it will account for 20 percent of Pakistan's needs, IRNA reported.
"We explicitly announce that as a country having huge gas reserves, Iran will play a key role in guaranteeing global energy security in the future," Oil Minister Masood Mir-Kazemi was quoted as saying by the official agency after the deal was inked in Tehran.
Iran has already laid around 900 km out of the 1,000 km of the pipeline envisaged on its territory. Now, Pakistan will have to construct about 700 km from the border to its gas transmission network at Nawabshah, near Karachi, at a cost of $1.65 billion, officials said.
There is also a provision to raise the level of import to as much as 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day during the 25-year validity of the pact, which can be extended by another five years.
