May 24, 2002	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 11,1423

ISLAMABAD, May 23: In the heat of regional pipeline lobbying, Qatar and Iran are stepping up their joint efforts to dovetail their gas supplies in one pipeline to carry their gas to Pakistan and then onward to India, energy sector sources said.

The idea has come from Iranian oil minister Bijan Zangeneh and Crescent Petroleum of Sharjah has supported the “common user gas highway” that could carry upto 3.5 billion cubic feet per day (BCFD) of both Qatari and Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.

Separately, Pakistan has invited Crescent Petroleum of Sharjah, the sponsors of $3.2 billion Gulf-South Asia (GUSA) pipeline to finalise gas sales and purchase agreement with Pakistani authorities, sources said.

“We have been invited by the government of Pakistan and we are firming up a delegation and dates to negotiate the sales and purchase agreement during the second week of June,” a source in Crescent Petroleum told Dawn from Sharjah.

A delegation of Russian energy firm Gazprom has arrived here on Monday to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for cooperation to launch the gas pipeline from Iran to India.

Official sources said the Gazprom delegation would hold formal meetings with officials of the Privatisation Commission, Board of Investment (BOI) and ministry of petroleum and natural resources to take part in the privatisation and fresh investment projects.

This will be followed by a tripartite summit meeting of Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan on May 29 and 30 to finalise an agreement on trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and possibly to India.

Officials of the petroleum and natural resources are concentrating on the tripartite meeting and have shown little hopes about Gazprom having a piece in the action. They said they have yet to listen to the Gazprom ideas and then look into the possibilities whether these were workable.

The Russians themselves undermined their significance when their deputy oil minister withdrew from the delegation at the last moment, they said. These officials recalled that a high-level delegation of Gazprom led by its president had confirmed its visit to Pakistan last year but later embarrassed Pakistan by cancelling the visit at the eleventh hour before flying from Delhi.

The Iranian oil minister had disclosed last month in an international oil conference in Oman that Iran looked forward to putting in place “common user highways” for the benefit of all the relevant parties.

A Crescent petroleum official said that they had discussed with Iranian authorities the idea to put together their gas production from South Pars gasfield in Iran and adjoining gas fields on the Qatari side.

The official said the proposed pipeline of 44 inch diameter from Qatar had a capacity of carrying additional two BCFD of Iranian gas for onward delivery to India.

He said that two options were under consideration on this subject: either to put Iranian gas into Qatari offshore pipeline to Pakistan or put Qatari gas into Iranian onshore pipeline to India to benefit from the proximity of two gasfields in Qatar and Iran.

The official said that project director of GUSA Mr Makkawi had already presented the “common user highway” before three international conferences in the UAE, Doha and London and had received very encouraging response.

The GUSA project has now secured sufficient assurances from the international financial institutions to finance the project once the gas supply and purchase agreement is signed with Pakistani authorities, the official said.

Pakistan is currently open to three gas import projects including from Turkmenistan, Iran and Qatar. The Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum had submitted a draft agreement to Islamabad in July last year to lay a 1610-km pipeline of 44” dia pipeline offshore along the Iran-Pakistan coastal line up to Jiwani, near Karachi to transport 1.6 BCF (billion cubic feet) natural gas with an offtake of 1000 MMCFD (million cubic feet per day) from the year 2005 onward.