SHAFAQNA PAKISTAN (Shia News Agency)
In an attempt to curtail Pakistan’s severe energy shortage, China has agreed to build a pipeline bringing natural gas from Iran to Pakistan. The final deal is to be signed during the long-sought visit of the Chinese President Xi Jinping to Islamabad in April, Pakistani officials said. Under a $2 billion deal to be signed during the Chinese president’s visit to Islamabad later this month, China will build a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran to Pakistan to help address Pakistan’s acute energy shortage. Pakistan has reportedly been negotiating for months with China to build the pipeline. The much-needed gas will help Pakistan fuel its power-generation plants and relieve it from crippling power shortages.
The arrival of President Xi Jinping is expected to showcase China’s commitment to infrastructure development in ally Pakistan at a time when few other countries are willing to make major investments in the cash-strapped and terrorism-plagued country.
The pipeline would amount to an early benefit for both Pakistan and Iran from the framework agreement reached earlier this month between Tehran and the US and other world powers to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The US had previously threatened Pakistan with sanctions if it went ahead with the project.
Pakistan is negotiating with China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau, a subsidiary of Chinese energy giant China National Petroleum Corporation, to build 435 miles (700 kilometers) of pipeline from the western Pakistani port of Gwadar to Nawabshah in the southern province of Sindh, where it will connect to Pakistan’s existing gas-distribution pipeline network. The remaining 50 miles (80 kilometers), from Gwadar to the Iranian border, will be built by Pakistan. The pipeline, which would take two years to build, would eventually supply Pakistan with enough gas to fuel 4,500 megawatts of electricity generation – almost as much as the country’s entire current electricity shortfall.
Pakistan Iran Pipeline will not only help Pakistan to overcome energy crisis but it would also help to improve shaky tries between both the countries. Though the fears of Saudi interventions are still there yet it is hoped that this time Pakistan will prefer its interests rather than obeying Saudi demands.
