India has asked Pakistan to waive the $200 million a year transit fee it is expecting for allowing passage of a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran.
NEW DELHI: India has asked Pakistan to waive the $200 million a year transit fee it is expecting for allowing passage of a pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran.
Sources said Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and its Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri Tuesday evening that Islamabad stood to benefit most out of the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project to meet its energy deficit.
A 48-inch pipeline from Iran is to carry 60 million standard cubic meters per day of gas that will be split equally between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan is expecting a natural gas deficit in 2009-10, just before the pipeline arrives, while in case of India its current deficit is expected to be wiped out by then as gas finds of Reliance Industries and GSPC come on stream.
The pipeline would benefit Pakistan more as Islamabad is in requirement of gas more than India, Deora said, asking Pakistani leaders for a waiver as a goodwill and confidence building measure, particularly as New Delhi will anyway be paying a transportation tariff for using pipeline in Pakistan.
With the visiting side not relenting on waiver, New Delhi offered to pay Pakistan a transit fee of no more than $60 million per annum, sources said.
Sources said Deora also asked Pakistan to trim the transportation charge India has to pay to Pakistan for using the 1,035-km of the pipeline section in Pakistan.
He proposed a tariff of $0.55 per million British thermal unit ($220 million per annum for 30 mmscmd gas) as against Pakistan's expectation of $1.57 per mBtu.
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