Oil minister Mani Shankar Aiyar plans to travel to Islamabad in May to hold talks to build a $4 billion pipeline to carry Iranian natural gas via Pakistan to South Asia.The proposed project, earlier regarded as a pipe dream because of political tensions between India and Pakistan, has been actively discussed by the two countries since they began a cautious peace process last year. Aiyar will visit Tehran in June to discuss the deal for the import of natural gas from Iran via a 2,600-km onland pipeline, 760 km of which would pass through Pakistan. “There are a whole lot of issues that will be discussed when I visit Pakistan,” he told reporters. India imports 70 per cent of its crude oil and produces barely half the gas it consumes.Aiyar said he planned to hold discussions on trade in the hydrocarbon sector with his Saudi Arabian counterpart. “It is a very significant bilateral visit by any Indian petroleum minister to Saudia Arabia because over the years India’s imports of crude oil have gone up four-fold.”
