Robert M. Cutler on Energy and Eurasia

Gazprom trying to move into South Asia

The head of Gazprom is making his first ever trip to Pakistan in order to sign a Memorandum of Understanding concerning the company's investment in the long-talked-about Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. Gazprom is a major shareholder (along with TotalFinaElf and Petronas) in Iran's South Pars field, which would furnish the gas. This is part and parcel of an informal Russian-Iranian alliance against Western geo-economic penetration into Central and South Asia. The invitation to Russia is Pakistani state policy, although it is hardly surprising that no reports have surfaced of Russian interest in participating in the possible Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline.