Pakistan, Russia Enter Final Round of IP Pipeline Talks Next Week

Pakistan and Russia are going in for final rounds of negotiations next week to decide whether energy giant Gazprom will participate in the project or not amid sanctions imposed by the US on Iran.

“If there is a breakthrough, Pakistan and Russia could sign a deal to award IP gas pipeline project to Russian energy giant Gazprom during the upcoming visit of Russia President Vladimir Putin to Pakistan next month,” a source told The Express Tribune.

The same source told the newspaper that the delay in striking deals is due to complicated international situation when it comes to Iran.

The Pakistani government had submitted detailed engineering design of IP gas pipeline project during a meeting of Pak-Russia joint Working Group Meeting held in last week of June, the report said.

Under the energy cooperation programme, Pakistan wants to award the contract of IP gas pipeline without bidding as it is facing financial difficulty in raising finance due to sanctions imposed on Iran. Russia has also offered financing for the transnational Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project.

At present, Pakistan is negotiating the construction of IP gas pipeline with three countries – Iran, China and Russia. China has not still responded to the offer while talks are on going with Iran.