ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: Pakistan is facing difficulties to go ahead with the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project due to the mounting US pressure on Islamabad and New Delhi to give up the over $7 billion plan.

Informed sources told Dawn on Saturday, though almost all technical and professional issues had been sorted out among the three stakeholders, the intensifying US opposition to the project could delay its execution.

The remaining issues of pipeline structure and gas pricing will be sorted out in tripartite talks to be held in Iran next month, but the officials concerned fear for the progress of the project under the present circumstances.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf said in Davos on Thursday that Pakistan had no plans to ditch the natural gas deal with Iran. If the United States wanted Pakistan to stay away from the project, it should pay the compensation.

Sources said that all the three countries were keen to sign the final agreement as early as possible, but could not “straightaway” reject the US reservations over the IPI gas project.

“If everything goes as per plan, we should be able to start this project by June next year. But I am afraid, I cannot speak about the political issues which are of course important and need to be settled,” a source said.

He said the target of achieving 7.5-8 per cent GDP growth rate could not come true without having all the three gas projects finalised.

“At least two gas pipeline projects have to be firmed up to achieve the desired growth rate in near future,” a source said.

Talks on Turkmenistan gas project, he said, would be held on Feb 13-15, while the Qatar government had been requested to give time for initiating discussion on a gas pipeline project from Qatar to Pakistan.

Sources said that keeping in view the financial and technical viability of the IPI project, it was not difficult to arrange a foreign consortium to manage funding for it and other two gas projects, sources added.

Iran has proposed a segmented approach to build the trans-national pipeline, which means that each country should construct the pipeline in its respective territory. Another proposal is to lay the whole pipeline as an integrated project from gas field in Iran to distribution points in Pakistan and India.

The Pakistan’s Interstate Gas Company Limited (IGCL) has appointed Pricewaterhouse Coopers as financial adviser to propose a best possible structure of the project from Pakistan’s point of view.

Islamabad has sent a gas pricing formula to Iran, which is based on gas pricing mechanism in Pakistan.