ECO energy moot to take key decisions: Minister

ISLAMABAD (NNI): The forthcoming ECO energy conference to be held in Islamabad will take important decisions regarding regional cooperation in oil and gas sector.

This was stated by Petroleum Minister spokesman Jehangir Basher in an exclusive interview with Radio Pakistan here Monday. The decision to convene first energy and petroleum ministers meeting of the Eco member states in Islamabad in November this year was taken by the ECO summit in Tehran.

The spokesman said three Central Asian States of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan have rich resources of oil and gas and for export of these commodities natural and shortest routes pass through Pakistan. He said the government is already working to develop Gawadar Port so as to meet this requirement. He said apart from oil, gas can also be brought to Gawadar and converted into LNG for onward export to South East Asia.

Asked about status of the gas pipeline projects, pre-feasibility of the pipeline to be laid from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan has already been done. He, however, said following withdrawal of the UNICOL from the Consortium the remaining companies are identifying other partners for the purpose. It will cost about two billion dollars.

As for the Iranian gas pipeline, he said pre-feasibility has been conducted and negotiations on technical and commercial terms are to follow. The spokesman indicated that there was also a proposal to lay oil pipeline parallel to the gas pipelines from these countries.