ISLAMABAD, Dec 30: Iran on Tuesday offered to deliver natural gas at Balochistan’s coastline from where Pakistani gas companies could dovetail about 500-1500 million cubic feet imported gas into existing national transmission system, Dawn has learnt.

Pakistan was asked to respond to the offer in six months after taking into account the technical aspects of the national transmission system, so that further modalities of the $2 billion project could be finalized, official sources told Dawn .

A two-day meeting of the Iran-Pakistan working group experts on the proposed gas pipeline also agreed that a Pakistani technical team should visit Tehran within next month to examine technicalities of the Iranian offer.

When contacted, Secretary Petroleum Abdullah Yousaf confirmed that Iran had offered to lay a pipeline from its South Pars gas field to a point in Balochistan. He said Pakistan could take gas from Balochistan to wherever it was required. He said Iranian side briefed the meeting about the pre-feasibility study conducted by the BHP of Australia.