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Iran, India to explore option of extending gasline to China
By agencies
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Monday, 13 June 2005, 19:30 IST
TEHRAN: Iran has agreed to explore possibilities of extending the 2600-km Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline to China, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said.
Aiyar, who headed the Indian delegation at the ministerial level talks with Iran on natural gas imports, said "Iran has given the green signal on our embarking on serious dialogue with Chinese on whether this pipeline could be extended to China." During his discussions with Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh, he also asked for extension of the quantity of liquefied natural gas (LNG) Iran will export to India from 2009-10 to 7.5 million tons from 5 million tones already agreed.
Iran has refused to give concession on price for an additional 2.5 million tons of LNG New Delhi wants to buy over and above the 5 million tons per annum of LNG already agreed. On the contrary, Iranian side has proposed a hike in price.
India also wants the LNG composition to be similar to Qatar's as far as possible. Since Qatar LNG contains nearly 9.5 percent C2/C3/C4 components, Iran should at least commit 5 percent C2 as they are likely to extract most of C3 and C4.
"You will know the outcome of all these discussions when we conclude the three-day ministerial talks on Monday," Aiyar said but clearly indicated that a Sale Purchase Agreement for 5 million tones of LNG will be signed and additional quantities if agreed may be included. Otherwise they would be signed at another date, he added.