Gas project framework accord likely next year
ISLAMABAD—Pakistan will appoint a consultant to suggest a project
structure and legal and financial arrangements for the over seven
billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline within the next two weeks
said Petroleum Secretary Ahmad Waqar Friday. He said after the first
round meeting of Indo-Pak Joint Working Group on the pipeline that”We
will be appointing the consultant in the next two weeks. The process is
on,”, Press Trust of India reported. He said Pakistan was evaluating the
project structure suggested by India. The Secretary said a framework
agreement for the pipeline was likely by mid next year. Tripartite
meeting of India-Pakistan and Iran to discuss the framework agreement
was likely in first quarter of 2006, he said. Pakistan and India Joint
Working Group (JWG) third meeting on multi-billion Iran-Pakistan-India
gas pipeline project is starting today in New Delhi. The first meeting
of the Joint Working Group (JWG) was held in New Delhi and the next in
Islamabad. India’s Union Minister for Petroleum Mani Shankar Iyar
recently told the Indian parliament’s lower house that the progress on
the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project was satisfactory.—Agencies |
