No business as usual between India, Pakistan

Last week, the two energy firms were given approval by the Union External Affairs Ministry to submit request for participation (RFP) in the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-floated tender, but with two riders.

One, the project, as conceived, should not in any way bring the pipeline to Indian borders. Second, the approval should not be construed to demonstrate New Delhi’s interest in participating in the proposed pipeline.

‘‘New Delhi continues to oppose any such pipeline or related business for security reasons and will continue to do so unless Pakistan adopts a normal approach to business, including providing India a most-favoured nation status,’’ said sources.

The approval to IOC and GAIL is purely of commercial nature since it is funded by the ADB (Asian Development Bank) and should be treated as participation in any international commercial project, the ministry told the two firms.

The trio of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan (TAP) have been imploring India to participate in the natural gas pipeline which crosses Pakistan over land.

The TAP consortium have repeatedly requested New Delhi to join them as India is considered to be the principal market for the Turkmenistan gas. But New Delhi is opposed to it for the pipeline provides Islamabad an opportunity to disrupt supplies and use the pipeline as a leverage against India if tension between the two escalates. The ADB backing to the project has also failed to impress India which considers Pakistan’s behaviour both unpredictable and unreliable.

ADB’s proposal is to export gas from the Dauletabad-Donmez fields of Turkmenistan across landlocked Afghanistan to a terminus in Karachi through a 1,600-km pipeline. The supply could be about 42 billion cubic metres per day for 25 years with the gas priced between $2.4 to $3.0 per million British thermal units.