STAFF REPORT ISB: Pakistan has decided to work on the Iran-Pakistan-India Pipeline project and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project despite the US open criticism of the IPI gas project and supporting the other project. Experts believe that TAPI is financially unstable and unviable project.
However, Pakistan apparently does not want to annoy the US, who is openly criticizing the Pakistans gas project with Iran. Therefore, Islamabad will also keep working on TAPI.
The IPI project does not touch any troubled areas, including a safe passage from Baluchistan because according to the proposed design, the pipeline would be constructed on shore from the delivery point at the Pakistan-Iran border to the point at which the gas is injected into the national gas transmission system in Pakistan.
Pakistan will construct about an 800-kilometer-long pipeline from its border, passing through the Mekran Coastal Highway to connect with its existing gas transmission network at Nawabshah. Iran has almost finished 300-kilometer-long stretch from Iranshahr to Pakistan’s border through the Iranian port of Chabahar.
The TAPI pipeline will run 144 kilometers in Turkmenistan, 735 kilometers into Afghanistan and 800 kilometers in Pakistan, before reaching India and will have a capacity to transport 90 million cubic meters per day of gas 38 million cubic meters per day each for India and Pakistan and the remaining 14 million cubic meters per day for Afghanistan.