Bangladesh Keen to Join Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline
TEHRAN (FNA)- Chairman of Bangladesh Energy Company (Petrobangla) Hossain Monsur announced that Dhaka welcomes Iran's invitation to join the multi-billion-dollar pipeline project which is due to bring Iran's gas to Pakistan.
"We would be very happy to be a part of the proposed multi-country gas pipeline," Bangladeshi newspaper The Financial Express quoted Monsur as saying.
Bangladesh said the project would be renamed the Iran-Pakistan-India-Bangladesh pipeline if the government signed onto the deal.
In a recent letter to the Finance Ministry's Economic Relations Division (ERD), the Iranian ambassador to Dhaka said Bangladesh could join the pipeline project to be built to supply natural gas from Iran, the Bangladeshi officials said.
"We have forwarded the letter of Iranian envoy to the energy division. The division will now chart its own course," a senior ERD official said last week.
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.
Subsequently, Tehran and Islamabad signed a final agreement to launch implementation of the project.
Tehran and Islamabad also sealed a final contract for the start of Iran's gas exports to Pakistan through the multi-billion-dollar pipeline in spring 2014.
The last annex of the agreement for export of Iran's gas to Pakistan was signed on June 13 by Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazzemi and Managing Director of Pakistan's Inter-State Gas Company Naeem Sharafat in a meeting also attended by the Iranian oil ministry's representative in gas talks with Pakistan Seyed Reza Kassayeezadeh.
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.
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.
