Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Iran, Pakistan ink the gas pipeline deal without India

Pakistan signed a deal for the supply of natural gas 750 million metric cubic units a day to 1 billion cubic units a day. This deal was worth 7.5 billion USD. Though I really don't know the pricing of the gas.

The pipeline that was to come to India was to be 2700 Kms and now they have settled at only 900 Kms. Had India joined the deal, despite Pakistan's assurance that it will try to safeguard the pipeline, India can never be sure of the safety of the two-thirds of the pipeline that is non-critical to Pakistan.

Earlier India had made a statement saying that the transit tariff demanded by Pakistan is very high. It was speculated that this tariff would mean that Pakistan would have a significantly shorter investment recovery time than India.

And with the recent oil field investments by ONGC in Venezuela and Russia, and gas field discovery by RIL, India does not feel so pressed for energy as it once was.

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