Energy companies in Bangladesh would welcome a decision to join a natural gas pipeline project from the South Par gas field in Iran, an executive said.
Iran and Pakistan agreed to the finalized terms of a natural gas pipeline stretching from the South Pars gas complex in the Persian Gulf earlier this
year.
First deliveries of natural gas through the pipeline are expected in Pakistan by 2015. Islamabad has contracted 750,000 cubic feet of gas per day through the pipeline under the terms of the 25-year deal.
Tehran in a letter to the Bangladeshi government offered an invitation to join the project. The Bangladeshi government said it was considering the
deal.
Hossain Monsur, chairman of the state-owned energy company Petrobangla, told Bangladeshi newspaper The Financial Express the proposal was welcomed.
"We would be very happy to be a part of the proposed multi-country gas pipeline," he was quoted as saying.
The pipeline would be the first of its kind for Central Asia if developed. Bangladesh said the project would be renamed the Iran-Pakistan-India-Bangladesh pipeline if the government signed onto the deal.
Iran started construction on the pipeline in its territory using domestic engineering companies.