India and Pakistan today began final round of discussions to resolve differences on the 7.4-billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline before the three nations sign a deal next month.
The United States had warned that it could invoke sanctions against the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project in future, Sharif said without giving details.
Stressing the deal is underway, Chidambaram said India has not yet resolved the price of the gas.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora would visit Pakistan early next month to sort out differences over transit fee for the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
A decision on the multi-billion dollar gas pipeline between Iran and India, which will pass through Pakistan will be made in two weeks, a senior Iranian minister said in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.
The pause gives the US time to breathe, to regroup, to move its expeditionary force into position without risk of interception along the way. It gives Iran nothing -- on the ground, attacks against its infrastructure continue apace. Prem Panicker in his must read daily blog on the Gulf War.
Observing that the proposed multi-billion dollar Indo-Iran gas pipeline via Pakistan is fraught with risks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said he did not know if any international consortium of bankers would underwrite the project.
The petroleum ministry has blamed negligence for causing the devastating fire at state-owned gas transporter GAIL India Ltd's gas pipeline in Andhra Pradesh that killed 22 people.
The government is likely to drop GAIL as the monopoly builder of trunk gas pipelines in the country and as part of opening up the sector, might allow Reliance Industries to lay a line from Andhra Pradesh to Gujarat.
Voicing "concern" over the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, the United States has said that it was sharing its feelings with the two South Asian nations in a "constructive" manner and not in a "negative way".
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have used a mix of charm and roguish coercion to let India know that he expected the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline proposal to become a reality in 45 days. But India is in no hurry to take a decision, a top Cabinet minister in the United Progressive Alliance government said. The volatile political environment in Iran and Pakistan has as much weightage now and the UPA government is becoming more reluctant.
Iran last week said it will by October-end sign a pact with Pakistan to sell gas through a bilateral pipeline in the absence of India joining the Iran-Pakistan-India gas line.
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India is likely to join a consortium involving Iran and Pakistan to build the much delayed $7.4-billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline
Commuters in Mumbai are having a hard time on Tuesday as the supply of Compressed Natural Gas in the city was hit after a service pipeline was badly damaged.
India said on Tuesday it will meet Pakistan 'soon' to resolve issues such as transit fee that have stalled a trilateral agreement on the proposed multi-billion dollar gas pipeline originating from Iran. New Delhi first excused itself for a bilateral meeting with Pakistan and then boycotted the September trilateral meeting in Tehran, saying it first wanted to resolve the issue of transit fee payable to Islamabad for wheeling the gas through that country.
India and Pakistan have decided to adopt international standards for calculating transit fee for the proposed Indo-Iran gas pipeline through this country.
Oil experts from Iran and Pakistan will meet in Teheran on Tuesday to add finishing touches to the $7-billion gas pipeline project linking the two countries as well as India, which is not attending the talks, a media report said.
Iran said it will not set any deadline for India to join the gas pipeline that also includes Pakistan and hoped New Delhi will not buckle under US pressure to dump the multi-billion dollar project for a rival pipeline from Turkmenistan. "We have not set any deadline (for India to join the IPI pipeline project)," Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said on Thursday.
While the pipeline deal was seen as "done" two months ago, when the tri-lateral meeting took place in New Delhi, India is perceived to be dragging its feet on the project since then.
It will have a capacity of 33 billion cubic metres
Pakistan will also engage an international consultancy firm to conduct a feasibility study on its section of the project. The firm will carry out a feasibility study within Pakistan's borders and submit a report by the first quarter of next year, Dawn News channel reported on Thursday. Pakistan and Iran recently held two-day technical-level talks here on the gas purchase agreement and other legal aspects of the project.
"The Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project is one of the most important economic projects in the region, which will bring extensive benefits for the three countries," Ambassador Mashallah Shakeri said. Pointing out that the measures taken by Pakistan and Iran showed their "firm will" for executing the project, Shakeri told a local news agency that the bilateral agreement between the two countries will be finalised by January 25.
Besides other issues, lack of pact between India and Pakistan on the price of the gas led to the delay in the project.
Mahanagar Gas (MGL) has just hiked prices for compressed natural gas (CNG) and domestic piped natural gas (PNG) in the Mumbai Metro Area. The distributor raised prices by Rs 1.50 per kilogramme (kg) for CNG, bringing the price up to Rs 75 per kg, including taxes. Domestic PNG prices were hiked from Rs 1 per standard cubic meter (SCM) to Rs 48 per SCM, inclusive of taxes.
President George W Bush on Saturday said US has no problem with India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline but with Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
With New Delhi boycotting formal talks for almost three years, Iran and Pakistan this month signed last of a series of agreements for implementing the project on bilateral basis.
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Replying to a special calling attention motion on the issue by opposition parties, including DMK, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa said her government would not encourage projects affecting people's welfare.
"I hope that now when the talks are set to begin with India, so the project would be definitely be on agenda," Petroleum Minister Naurez Shakoor told reporters in Islamabad.
ONGC currently supplies gas directly in isolated pockets of India, mainly in Gujarat and Assam, which contributes around Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) to ONGC's total marketing revenues. In May 1992, gas pipelines and marketing functions related to natural gas were transferred by ONGC to GAIL. However, there are certain isolated pockets where ONGC continues to be the marketing agency.
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India on Friday expressed confidence that the work on the proposed $7-billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project would start by March next year as it is hopeful of finalising a transit fee agreement with Islamabad before that. India is confident of starting the 2775 km long IPI project by end of March 2008, M S Srinivasan, secretary, ministry of petroleum and natural gas, told reporters in Coimbatore.
