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ISLAMABAD: With millions of dollars in potential penalties looming, the government has constituted a high-powered committee to find a “mutually acceptable” way out of the decades-old impasse over the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, as it weighs the cost of penalties against the country’s growing energy needs.
Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik told the Senate on Tuesday that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had set up the committee to examine the project’s legal, financial and energy dimensions and recommend a way forward “in Pakistan’s national interest”.
Raising an attention notice, Senator Talha Mahmood noted that the project had been delayed for two decades and that Iran had already laid the pipeline up to the Pakistani border. He asked whether Pakistan was ready to receive Iranian gas once sanctions were lifted and how much work had been completed on its side of the pipeline.
“Can Pakistan immediately integrate Iranian gas into its system? How long will it take to make the pipeline operational after sanctions are lifted? What preparations has Pakistan made to receive the gas?” he asked.
