By IANS
New Delhi : India, Pakistan and Iran Friday said they had moved closer to sealing an ambitious $7.4 billion deal to transport natural gas from Iran to the other two energy-hungry countries through a 2,300-km terrestrial pipeline that the US has voiced its opposition to.
"I am very glad we have reached, to a great extent, an agreement on all issues," India's Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said, referring to a meeting over three days in the Indian capital among officials of the three sides.
Iran's special envoy Hojjatollah Ghanimifard who attended the talks said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf will be invited to Tehran to ink the deal as he hoped to resolve pending issues by July.
Officials of the three countries met here for the two-day talks on the pipeline and held extensive discussions to resolve all differences that have prevented the project, first proposed way back in 1990, from becoming a reality.
"All major elements have been thrashed out," India's Petroleum Secretary M.S. Srinivasan told reporters here as he emerged from the talks with his Pakistan counterpart Ahmad Waqar and Ghanimifard.
"We are very close to resolving the entire thing. Next month, the ministers should be able to meet in Islamabad and then in Iran." Deora is expected to visit Islamabad to give a political push to the talks.
The project, also called the 'peace pipeline' but frowned at by Washington, will supply 30 million cubic meters of gas each daily to India and Pakistan. The gas will be delivered at a chosen point on the India-Pakistan border.
Global consultants Ernst and Young and Britain's ILF, who were appointed by the Indian government, have already found the project to be feasible. Iran has the second-biggest natural gas reserves in the world after Russia.
"We are assuring that 30 million cubic metres per day of gas will be provided to both India and Pakistan each, and will start off by 2011," Ghanimifard said and indicated that they had set an informal deadline of end-July to clinch a deal.
"We expect the transportation tariff at around $0.6 to $0.7 per million British thermal unit," Srinivasan said.
India and Pakistan had reached a broad agreement on the transportation fee that is payable to Islamabad for bringing the gas from Iran and supplying it to India even as Tehran asked for a re-look on the price of gas.
"We have agreed on the principals of the formulae under which the transportation fee will be computed," a senior official from Pakistan had said Thursday. "The fee will depend on the cost of transportation infrastructure."
But the two countries could not reach an agreement on the transit fee.
Pakistan has been demanding a transit fee for the whole stretch of the pipeline from Iran to the Indian border. But India feels it should only pay for the extension of the project to its border since Pakistan will also use the pipeline.
The two sides felt this matter could be left to their political leadership to decide.