Iran hopeful of IPI pipeline coming up by 2013

Notwithstanding the unresolved issues blocking the proposed $7-billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) oil and gas pipeline, Tehran is hopeful of the project coming through by 2013.

"I am hopeful that the gas pipeline would be operationalised by 2013," said Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammad after his meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

Talking to mediapersons, Mostafa Pour Mohammad said he had discussed the pipeline issue with Indian leaders and had found them to be "very positive".

He said that the three partner countries need to work on bilateral and multilateral platform to get this pipeline project through.

Bilaterally, the pricing of the gas at the India-Pakistan border needs to be finalised "" which requires resolution of the tricky issue of transit and transportation tariff. There are also reservations about the price revision clause that the Iranians want to introduce.

The visiting minister said at present while the negotiations between Iran and Paki-stan on the pipeline had moved ahead.

On whether the impending US sanctions against his country could block the IPI pipeline, Mohammad said it was unlikely as Iran, India and Pakistan had all the requisite technologies to make this pipeline operational.

Mohammad claimed the prime minister had accepted an invitation from President Mohammad Ahmajenejad to visit Tehran in the near future.

Earlier, Singh's visit to Tehran in June had to be put off as the IPI deal, which he along with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was supposed to sign, during the visit, had not been finalised.

The proposed 2,100-km pipeline will initially carry around 60 million cubic metres of gas a day, split equally between India and Pakistan.

Industry experts say that although the expected $7 per mBtu price for the Iran gas is high compared to the current domestic price ranging from $2-$5 per mBtu, there would be takers for the gas.

"India will always be a gas deficient country in spite of the major discoveries in the east coast. Power plants, for example, which currently use expensive naphtha or LNG as fuel, would not mind paying even $8 per mBtu for gas," one analyst said.