Iran denies new gas agreement with Pakistan

Tehran, Dec 31, IRNA -- Iran’s Oil Ministry has dismissed allegations of a new agreement with its eastern neighbor Pakistan on an incomplete gas pipeline project. “New agreements on Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline are not true,” Iran’s Petroleum Ministry said, according to shana.ir. It was reacting to remarks by some Pakistani officials that new accords have been reached between Tehran and Islamabad on the much-delayed gas pipeline. Iran has built its own section of the gas pipeline stretching from the giant South Pars gas field, but Pakistan has not met its obligations for its own section of the pipeline. Pakistan desperately needs Iran’s gas to feed its power plants and resolve its load shedding particularly during summer. Earlier this week, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi totally rejected statements attributed to him by the Financial Times on Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. On December 26, the UK based newspaper Financial Times wrote: Energy-starved Pakistan has convinced Iran to step back from demanding $200m a month from January 1 to compensate for Islamabad’s failure to begin receiving gas from Iran’s South Pars gasfield, according to the country’s minister for petroleum. In an exclusive interview with IRNA on Saturday Abbasi reiterated that he had never made such a statement in his recent interview with the FT. On Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, he said some officials from Iran’s NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company) would visit Islamabad in the next few days to meet the officials of Pakistan’s Inter State Gas Systems (ISGS) to discuss the way to implement the project and talk about the remaining issues. The gas pipeline project signed between the two countries in 2010. The federal minister further added that the exact date for NIOC-ISGS meeting to be announced soon./end