New Delhi
16 July 2006
Iran was not particularly inclined to bring down the price of gas India
has offered to buy and said it was under no obligation to sell it at a price lower than what
has been offered. According to Iranian media reports, the oil minister of Iran has refused
to entertain discussions or acommodate India's bid.
"Oil minister (Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh) also noted that Iran has no plans to sell
inexpensive gas to India or Pakistan and those countries should not be looking forward
to receiving cheap gas," Petroenergy Information Network (PIN) of The Iranian Ministry of
Petroleum reported on Saturday.
Iran has offered its gas to be valued on the basis of the 10 per cent of the Brent oil
prices, which is equal to 7.2 dollars per one million BTU (British Thermal Unit) with an
annual increase of three per cent but India has proposed 4.25 dollars for each one
million BTU for delivery at her borders.
The Iranian oil minister's comments came ahead of the third meeting of the tripartite
working group on the India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project on August 3 and4 and a few
days before Iranian Foreign Minister Maouchehr Mottaki travels to New Delhi for talks
with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and a host of other Indian leaders.
According to a PTI report, the Iranian oil minister termed the Indian offer as based on
"subsidised domestic prices" and said Tehran will not sell its gas at the proposed price.
"If the Indian side is not ready to buy our gas at its real price, we have no obligation to
sell it at the price lower than the real one," the PTI quoted him as saying, adding that
India and Pakistan should forget about buying Iran's gas at a low price.
His deputy, Mohammad Nejad-Hosseinian, said a few days ago that the natural gas
prices are the most important issues in the trilateral gas deal negotiations between Iran,
India and Pakistan. Natural gas prices still remain the main bone of contention in the
negotiations being carried out between the three nations noted, he said, adding,
however, "We should wait and see the results of the next round of the talks that are to
resume in August."
India has called for the purchase of 90 million cubic metres of gas per day from Iran to
be transferred through a 2,100-kilometre India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline and Pakistan
has put its daily demand for the commodity at 60 million cubic metres.
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