India committed to IPI gas pipeline: FM

[Flintlock]

India committed to IPI gas pipeline: FM
23 Oct 2007, 1152 hrs IST,PTI

SMS NEWS to 58888 for latest updates
WASHINGTON: India is committed to the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline said Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who is in Washington the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The issue of Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline was discussed when Chidambaram met the Iranian Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Davood Danesh Jafari.

"He asked me about our commitment to the pipeline. I said we remain committed to the pipeline. We would have to sort out one or two issues relating to the transit charges. He urged us to resolve these as quickly as possible", Chidambaram said.

"It is completely doable. We should do it. Iran has the gas and we need the gas. We have a problem on the transit charges and that is a problem India and Pakistan would have to resolve. I don't know of any other problems. It is a commercial negotiation, a commercial matter and should be dealt with as a commercial matter," the finance minister said.

Chidambaram also had a number of bilaterals with finance ministries or deputies from countries including Russia, Spain, Nepal and Iran.

He also had discussions with the Secretary of State of the UK and the Minister of Economic Cooperation of Germany.

 

[Shivakumar]

Is he confused or trying to confuse the world?

 

[Flintlock]

Why is he confused?

 

[IceCold]

Ohhhh please. Indian politicans are full of BS these days. We know how much they are committed to the IPI project. The only reason he said so is because India is having problems internally over the 123 deal with the US, until the deal is finalized india wants to keep this project in hand too.

 

[niaz]

Signs are that IPI gas pipeline is becoming IP pipeline as India seems to have virtually pulled out of the deal, ostensibly due to the US pressure. As someone who has spent most of his working life in the oil industry and still making a living out of it; I find it rather strange. According to the International Energy Agency Oil Market Report published recently, Indian total consumption is now 2.8-million barrels per day ( nearly 56 -million tons) and rising about 4.5% annually. This is roughly half of the annual GDP growth. With local production of Oil& Gas ( approx 28-million tons) barely sufficient to meet 50% of the total demand, all of the increased demand has to be met from imports.

Based on this I find it really strange and short sighted of the Indian Government to drag her feet on this issue of great national importance. May be some Hon Members of Indian origin can elucidate this subject in more detail.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Signs of a realignment of the two states?

Pakistan choosing to work with all of the various "blocks", developing relationships with the US, China, Middle East, and attempting rapprochement with the Russians, is perhaps trying to establish itself as truly "non aligned" - whereas India is choosing to back off a bit and garnish some of the benefits the US has to offer by aligning more closely with it.

On the issue of energy demands, perhaps Nuclear power (123 agreement) was favored over gas.

 

[Neo]

Iran gives India four months to join gas deal​

(AFP)

13 November 2007

TEHERAN - Iran on Tuesday gave India a four-month deadline to formally agree its participation in a multi-billion dollar project to transport Iranian gas to India via Pakistan.

The warning came after Iran and Pakistan on Saturday finalised the content of the 7.4-billion-dollar gas export deal—originally a tripartite project—which is scheduled to be signed within a month.

‘I don’t think we would wait for them (India) more than three or four months,’ the managing director of National Iranian Gas Exports Company, Nosratollah Seifi, told reporters.

However, he expressed hope that New Delhi would still join the much-delayed project, under which energy-poor India would receive 30 million cubic metres (one billion cubic feet) per day of Iranian gas.

‘I think India will join the gas exports project because of its extreme and immediate need for energy,’ he said.

Seifi said the delay by India, an increasingly important US ally, was due to both energy and political issues.

‘They have domestic issues and we understand this. They think about whether to use nuclear energy... there are also foreign pressures.’

In New Delhi, Petrololeum Minister Murli Deora said India remained interested in a deal.

‘Before the next tripartitie meeting, a bilateral meeting between India and Pakistan is necessary to decide on transportation tariff, transit fees, etcetera and a common stand on the price revision clause proposed by Iran,’ he told a media conference.

‘We are finalising the dates for such a meeting.’

Talks on the project to supply gas to India via Pakistan and Pakistan itself through a 2,600-kilometre (1,615-mile) pipeline began in 1994 but were stalled by tensions between India and Pakistan.

An early October agreement between Iran and Pakistan marked a breakthrough when they agreed to a periodic revision of gas prices every three years instead of a long-term fixed price.

India has come under US pressure to pull out of the project, as part of Washington’s drive to sanction Iran for its refusal to bow to international demands to suspend its nuclear drive.

Iran has insisted it is determined to push ahead with the gas plan but a major sticking point has been over how much New Delhi should pay Pakistan in transit fees.

‘We do not have any insistence that India definitely joins us ... but we are waiting for them to overcome their domestic problems,’ Seifi said.

Khaleej Times Online - Iran gives India four months to join gas deal

 

[Sena Lee]

I thought the main problem was Pakistan and India could not agree on the price or is that resolved now?