No LNG agreement with India: Iran

On June 13, 2005, a consortium of Indian Oil, GAIL and Bharat Petroleum had signed a Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) for import of 5 million tonnes of LNG for 25 years with National Iranian Gas Export Co (NIGEC), which India maintains is legally binding.

Iran insists that the contract has to be ratified by the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC), the parent firm of NIGEC. NIOC has refused to ratify the contract unless the gas price is raised. “It (the LNG contract) is not a matter of agreement between the two countries,” Hosseini said.

On Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, he said Tehran had offers for exporting gas to countries like China and wanted New Delhi and Islamabad to resolve their differences fast. “We don’t have a lot of time,” he added.

Pakistan’s demand for a transit fee for allowing passage of Iranian gas to India on top of transportation charges for wheeling the fuel through a 1,035-km pipeline segment in that country had put a pause on negotiations on the IPI pipeline, with New Delhi boycotting trilateral meetings on the issue since July 2007.

The Iranian official said India and Pakistan should resolve their differences fast so that a trilateral meeting could be held for sealing the pipeline deal.