India talks gas project with Iran and Pakistan

New Delhi, May 2 (UNI) India today held talks with Iran and Pakistan over the seven billion dollar cross-country gas pipeline project, including cooperation in hydrocarbon sector.

The talks were held on the sidelines of a energy roundtable conference currently being held in Riyadh.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora met his Iranian counterpart Seyed Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh and Pakistani Petroleum Minister Amanullah Khan Jadoon and discussed these issues.

In the meeting with the Iranian Minister, Mr Deora also discussed the vexed issue of the LNG contract as a follow up of their last meeting in Tehran.

It may be recalled that Mr Deora had recently returned from his tour of Iran where he had discussed both IPI Gas Pipeline Project as well as the Indo-Iran LNG contract for five million tonne which was signed in June 2005 at Tehran.

Mr Deora also had a bilateral meeting with Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Al-Shahristani and raised the issue of moving forward with OVL's participation in Iraq's upstream oil sector. The Iraqi Minister invited IOCL and EIL to consider participation in the downstream sector of Iraq in particular for construction of Oil Refinery.

Mr Deora also emphasised the need for sustainable international oil prices stating that the high oil prices are neither in the interest of oil importing countries nor beneficial to the exporting nations in his address to the 2nd Ministerial Energy Roundtable of Asian Oil Producing and major Asian Oil Importing Countries at Riyadh.

Referring to the three-fold increase in global oil prices between 2000 and 2006, Mr Deora pointed out that the high oil prices in the long run will adversely impact both oil producing and importing countries.

The high oil prices leads to fall in demand by encouraging conservation and technological innovations and makes alternative investments for energy attractive besides putting strains on the resources of oil importing developing countries.

He called for evolving appropriate policy reforms and practical measures to ensure that the prices remain stable and affordable in the long run.

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