Government deliberately holding-up on Iran gas project: Murtaza Mughal

Government deliberately holding-up on Iran gas project: Murtaza Mughal

Tuesday, December 27: Dr Murtaza Mughal, president Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) alleged the government of deliberately holding-up on Iran gas. The President said that the basis reason behind this delay is to please the United States.

Mughal held that this policy of the government is damaging the country’s economy badly. Pakistan cannot secure its future without Iranian gas, said PEW president.

Dr Murtaza Mughal said that Iran has brought the pipeline to the border and now Islamabad should immediately start building the remaining portion of the pipeline.

Decades have already been wasted in discussions and modifications, further wastage of time will jack up costs and leave the industry uncompetitive in the international market, he warned.

Iran produces 5.5 trillion cubic feet of gas per year, it will sell 740 million cubic feet of gas per year which will address around 30% of our gas deficit, he said.

Mughal said that rulers seems unconcerned about over two per cent yearly fall in the GDP, over 25,000 crumbling industrial enterprises and untold miseries to the masses. He observed that the performance of local exploration sector
remained dismal despite knowing that our gas fields will be exhausted by 2025.

American will continue to oppose gas pipeline and do nothing to resolve the chronic shortages except offering economically unviable alternatives, Dr Mughal noted.

Despite sanctions, Iran is India’s second major source of crude, it could be Pakistan’s major source of gas, he opined. The president also urged India to take bold decision of joining the project after getting MFN status as it
cannot ignore its nearest gas reserves for long.

Controversial measures like banning CNG kits in new and old cars and cutting supply to CNG stations for months in a country with the world’s highest consumption make no sense, he added.

The country’s largest bank National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and the country’s largest exploration company Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) last week backed out from the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline on fears of
possible sanctions by the US.

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Posted by Wajahat Javed on Dec 28 2011. Filed under Business, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry