Agencies
The United States should offer Pakistan civil nuclear technology to meet its growing energy needs and stop coercing Pakistan to shelve the much needed Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, President Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) Dr. Murtaza Mughal said that Pakistan was facing an emergency like situation due to energy shortages and the IP gas pipeline project could resolve the escalating demand for gas in the future.
“Pakistan is facing a huge gas deficit of over 2 billion cubic feet per day as its production stands at 4.2 billion cubic feet,” he said, adding that importing gas from Iran will help ease the gas deficit in the country to a reasonable level.
He said that there were many states in the world generating a lot of their power through nuclear technology. For example, US, Sweden, Czech Republic and UK are generating 19 per cent, 39 per cent, 33 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.
Dr. Murtaza said that Iran had already completed a 900-km portion of the 56-inch diameter pipeline from Assaluyeh to Iran Shehr.
However, the remaining 200 km up to the Pakistan border is under design, and is expected to be completed in the next two years.
He said that the report suggests that the project implementation and construction is targeted in four years and the first gas flow will be available by the end of December 2014. The 750 mmcfd gas volume will help in generating up to 4,000MW electricity and create job opportunities in the backward areas of Balochistan and Sindh.
He added that Pakistan was to lay the 781 km pipeline in its territory and the project would be completed by December 2014.
The initial capacity of the pipeline will be 22 billion cubic meters of natural gas per annum, which is expected to later rise to 55 billion cubic meters. The pipeline aims to export 21.5 million cubic meters of Iranian natural gas to Pakistan every day or 8.7 billion cubic meters per year.
