OilMin considering gas import from Middle East via deep sea

With the proposals for a natural gas pipeline via Pakistan getting bogged down with security concerns,the Petroleum Ministry is considering a proposal to bring the gas from the Middle East through the deep sea....

With the proposals for a natural gas pipeline via Pakistan getting bogged down with security concerns,the Petroleum Ministry is considering a proposal to bring the gas from the Middle East through the deep sea.

The ministry plans to appoint state-run GAIL India Indias nominee in the talks for the two onland pipelines as the nodal agency to pursue a sub-sea pipeline to import gas from Iran and Qatar,sources said.

GAIL chairman BC Tripathi early this month asked the ministry to nominate GAIL for pursuing the offshore project and sought government-to-government level support with these countries to facilitate sourcing of gas for the proposed pipeline.

GAIL has a Principle of Cooperation with South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt. Ltd SAGE which has revived a decade-old project to build deep-sea gas pipeline linking the Middle East with India.

Tripathis rationale was that such onland pipeline projects take some time to fructify and that there was a need to explore other options,including the SAGE pipeline.

Further,the deep-water pipeline is planned to be routed through the exclusive economic zone of the transit countries thereby ensuring the security of supplies which is a major issue for the onland pipelines, he wrote.

Despite years of talks,the IPI and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipelines have not got off the ground because of New Delhis concerns on Islamabads ability to protect the pipeline.

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India wants Islamabad to agree to a performance guarantee for gas deliveries whereby Pakistan would have to compensate India for disruption in supplies even in case of sabotage or war between the two. But Pakistan is not ready to pledge to pay compensation.

Tripathis second argument for following the deep-sea route was the progress in pipeline technology that had resulted in 2,150-metre-deep Blue Stream Russia-Turkey pipeline and 1,127-metre-deep Green Stream Libya-Italy pipeline.

The SAGE pipeline is expected to transport 30 million cubic metres of gas per day,the same volume as what Iran has earmarked for India in the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. SAGE will only charge a transport fee of around 1 per million British thermal unit,he wrote.