Accord on Iran gas sales likely by December
ISLAMABAD—Government is hopeful that the draft accord on gas sales from
the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline will be ready by second
week of next month.
The draft accord on gas sales will be provided both to Pakistan and
India, said Rashid Lone, who is chief executive of Pak-Iran Inter State
Committee and head of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited.
A final agreement among Iran, Pakistan and India would be signed in June
next year to lay the multi-billion pipeline.
Lone was also part of the Pak-Iran Joint Working Group deliberations in
Tehran on November 16-17, during which both sides expressed satisfaction
over the progress of talks.
He expressed satisfaction that negotiations were moving ahead as
scheduled, adding two major stages had been covered successfully,
including the signing of memorandum of understanding in July last year
and the recent determination of length and width of the pipeline; daily
consumption of gas and demand and supply-related matters.
After the construction of the pipeline, the official said that Pakistan
would purchase one billion cubic feet gas daily in 2010-2011 and it
would be doubled in 2013-2014.
Likewise, India would use 2 billion cubic feet in the same period and
gas consumption would reach 3 billion cubic feet in 2013-2014, he
pointed out.
A tripartite framework agreement on the proposed gas pipeline from Iran
to India via Pakistan may not materialise by the year-end due to delays
in the holding of bilateral parleys, says a top Indian official.
The delay in part is due to Pakistan seeking postponement of the third
round of secretary level bilateral talks with India, scheduled here Nov
21-23, to the second week of December because their team is going to
Iran for talks.
The widespread devastation caused by the Oct 8 earthquake in Pakistan is
also believed to be one of the reasons for the postponement of talks.
In addition, while India has appointed the financial and technical
consultants for the project and hopes to finalise the legal consultants
soon, Pakistan is still to appoint their consultants.
“We were hoping that the meeting with Pakistani officials would take
place Nov 21-23 but they have asked for more time. They want the meeting
to be shifted to December when we were hoping to meet with the
Iranians,” Petroleum Secretary S. C. Tripathi told IANS. At India’s
insistence, Pakistan has agreed to a Joint Working Group meeting by the
second week of December.
“We were hoping the Iranian meeting would take place in the second week
of December but now it will have to be postponed till after the talks
with the Pakistani team,” said Tripathi. The petroleum secretary is,
however, still cautiously optimistic of meeting the Dec 31 deadline set
by Pakistan on arriving at a framework trilateral agreement on the way
ahead.
“We are still working towards that deadline,” said Tripathi. Based on
the preliminary report from financial consultants Ernst & Young, the
official said India has forwarded some proposals regarding the project
structure and the trilateral framework agreement to Iran and Pakistan.
“Now they have to respond. When we receive their response we can develop
an inter-governmental agreement and put together a structure to decide
who will be the owner of the pipeline,” he said. Stating that the talks
had reached a crucial point, Tripathi said: “At this critical stage, the
Iranians and Pakistanis must make up their minds. We have put some
leading questions to them. They have to take a view and come to a stage
of decisions”.
On their part, Ernst & Young has recommended that “the project will get
a strong push forward if India participates vis-à-vis India not
participating”. The firm feels there would be greater security and
comfort level for India if it is involved in the decision-making process
on the multi-billion dollar pipeline that would take around five years
to materialise once the three nations have the framework agreement in
place. Although a decade has passed in planning, the 1,600-km
Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project has only recently shown signs of
moving beyond conceptualisation.—Agencies |
