04 December 2004	Saturday	21 Shawwal 1425

KARACHI, Dec 3: Federal Minister for Petroleum Amanullah Khan Jadoon has said that Pakistan is making all out efforts to make the gas pipeline project from Iran to India a success.

The minister said that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and he himself would hold further talks with their Iranian counterparts on the proposed pipeline in January next year. He said this while talking to newsmen after a briefing by Shell Pakistan Managing Director Farooq Rehmatullah at its headquarters here on Friday.

Mr Jadoon said that India had not yet come in the way so far, but talks would also be held with it on this project. "No country has been shelved in our programme and we will visit Iran, Qatar and Turkmenistan," he added.

He said feasibility reports were under preparation and we would adopt the one which would be most feasible for us. He told a questioner that India had offered to export diesel to Pakistan but this issue was to be handled by the Ministry of Commerce.

"However there are no reservations with the Ministry of Petroleum in this regard." Answering a question the minister said his personal assessment was that the world oil prices would go down further. He said that the prime minister had frozen the oil prices at current levels and the government was taking on a lot of financial burden on this count. -APP