ISLAMABAD, July 25: A delegation of Crescent Petroleum of Sharjah arrived here on Thursday on a three-day visit to hold discussions on a gas price agreement for carrying a gas pipeline from Qatar to India through Jiwani near Karachi.

The team led by Ehsanullah Khan, adviser to president Crescent petroleum and project director of $3.2 billion Gulf South Asia gas pipeline (GUSA) Mr. Makkawi held discussions with Petroleum Minister Usman Aminuddin and secretary, petroleum, M. Abdullah Yousaf on Thursday.

Informed sources told Dawn that the delegation told Pakistani officials that Reliance Group of India had expressed keen interest to support the project that could carry up to 3.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) to India.

Crescent of Sharjah has already submitted a GPA to Pakistan and wanted realization of a project that envisaged dovetailing gas supplies from Qatar and Iran in one pipeline to carry their gas to Pakistan and then onward to India.

The Iranian oil minister Bijan Zangeneh and Crescent Petroleum of Sharjah have already agreed to the concept of a “common user gas highway” that could carry up to 3.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of both Qatari and Iranian gas to Pakistan and India.

The Iranian oil minister disclosed recently at 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 gas field in Iran and adjoining gas fields on the Qatari side and they were now supporting it.

The official said the proposed pipeline of 44 inch diameter from Qatar had surplus capacity of carrying additional 2 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 gas fields in Qatar and Iran.

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

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

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 upto 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.

Qatar, host to one of the largest US-Army positioning base in the world, possess the third largest natural gas reserves in the world or 50 per cent more than those of entire United States. It eyes on becoming a major petroleum player in the coming decade with prospects of the world richest nation in per-capita gross domestic product.

The issue of gas tariff between the Qatar government and Crescent Group have been hindering the execution of the GUSA project since early 1990’s but a reasonable progress is reported to have been made on that account, the sources said.