Managing director of National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) said Iran has currently no plans to fine Pakistan for delay in gas pipeline construction, an Iranian news agency reported on Tuesday.
On the possibility of fining Pakistan due to a nearly one-year delay in importing gas from Iran, Alireza Kameli said, “currently, Iran has no plans to demand compensation under the terms of the contract.”
Stressing that Iran has never intended to fine Pakistan for failing to take Iranian gas, Kameli asserted “we expect Pakistan to begin construction of gas pipelines on its territory.”
The Iranian official stressed that Pakistan has taken no action to meet its obligations of building part of a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran adding “the normal sequence is to first construct gas pipelines before negotiating with partners on purchasing natural gas.”
He further emphasized that Iran is not concerned over the newly-signed contract between Pakistan and Qatar for transferring LNG.
“We have no worries over the long-term due to the high costs of importing LNG in comparison with construction of pipelines for gas import,” Kameli reiterated.
The $7.5-billion Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipeline was inaugurated with great fanfare in March 2013 — but the project immediately hit quicksand in the form of international sanctions on Tehran, which meant cash-strapped Pakistan struggled to raise the money to build its side.
Tehran has already built its part of the 1,800-kilometre (1,100-mile) pipeline which should eventually link its South Pars gasfields to the Pakistani city of Nawabshah, close to the economic capital Karachi.
As part of an ambitious $46 billion economic corridor linking western China to the Middle East through Pakistan, Beijing recently started work on the section of the pipeline between Nawabshah and the port of Gwadar, close to the Iranian border.
Once this is completed, Pakistan will build the last 80 kilometres to Iran — before the 2018 general election, the government hopes — and it could in future extend the connection northeast to China.
