Wednesday, Aug 07, 2002
Russia revives gas pipeline proposal
By Vladimir Radyuhin
MOSCOW AUG. 6 . Russia's natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, has revived its mega project to build an underwater gas pipeline from Iran to India, media reports said here. Under the Russian proposal a gas pipeline would pass onland in Iran and India and underwater in its Pakistani section. The project, first proposed by Gazprom in 1997, was initially rejected as too costly. However, now Gazprom says that its recent experience in building the "Blue Stream'' underwater gas pipeline across the Black Sea to Turkey, will enable it to lower the cost of building the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline to $ 3.2 billion. This is almost $ 1 billion less than the cost of building an onland pipeline from Iran to Pakistan via Afghanistan proposed by the BHP Petroleum of Australia. Gazprom says its project is also the safest, as it bypasses the territory of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A pipeline laid in Pakistan's territorial waters at the depth of up to 2 km would be fairly well protected against terrorist attacks and political upheavals in Islamabad. Russia has already discussed the proposal with Iran, India and Pakistan. The Kommersant daily quoted the head of GAIL's development department, Rajiv Khanna, as saying that India was looking into the feasibility of the Gazprom proposal. According to media reports, the Pakistan's Minister for Petroleum, Usman Aminuddin, could visit Moscow later this month to sign an MoU that would allow Gazprom to launch a feasibility study in Pakistan. Gazprom has keen interest in the project, which apart from facilitating its greater involvement in Iran's gas industry, would also help it solve a major geopolitical problem: channel Iran's growing gas exports from the huge South Pars fields to India and Pakistan, leaving the Turkish market to Gazprom.
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