Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline
Despite ongoing pressure from the U.S. government to abandon the project, the Pakistan government has opted to go on with the construction of the Iran-Pakistan Pipeline (India has backed out for now), which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014. Pakistan and Iran had a groundbreaking ceremony on March 11, 2013 in Chah Bahar.
Wikipedia’s Timeline offered more specifics — “On 11 March 2013, inauguration of the construction works on the Pakistani section of the pipeline were inaugurated by president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari and president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
“In different times several companies have been interested to build the pipeline. Companies included Gazprom, BHP Billiton, National Iranian Gas Company, Petronas, and Total S.A. A consortium consisting of Royal Dutch Shell, BG Group, Petronas and an Iranian business group had negotiated on exporting of gas from South Pars to Pakistan. From India, GAIL had been involved. However, the pipeline’s section in Iran was built by the National Iranian Gas Company. It used Khatam al-Anbia as a subcontractor.”
“In Pakistan, a consortium of Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited is responsible for the construction of the pipeline.”
According to Natural Gas Asia, Iran will provide a $500 million financing payable in 20 years and almost half of the remaining $1bn financing will be arranged through a Chinese loan.
The pipeline project is in opposition with the U.S. sanctions against Iran. And another big winner could be… China.
