Pakistan, Iran to hold talks on IPI gas pipeline

An Iranian delegation led by Iran's deputy oil minister arrived in Islamabad on Friday to hold talks with Pakistani officials on the multi-billion-U.S. dollar Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project.

The visit of Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad-Hadi Nejad Hosseinian comes a few days after a telephone talk between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, who vowed to push the project forward.

The proposed 2,670-km IPI pipeline project has about 1,115-km length in Iran, 705 km in Pakistan and 850 km in India, and is likely to be initiated by mid-2007 and completed in early 2010, according to local reports.

Pakistan is pursuing the project to meet the expected energy supply and demand gap after 2010, reports said.

Source: Xinhua