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| India-Pakistan |
| Dupe entry: U.S. has plenty of concerns as Iran-Pak-India pipeline runs into problems |
| 2007-03-29 |
| From East Asia Intel, subscription. I put this under WoT Politix because of the ramifications this deal has with Iranian finances, which affects the outcome of things in the present situation in the Gulf. U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said during a visit to India that the proposal for an Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline does not figure in the continuing negotiations to end American prohibitions on nuclear and other high-tech transfers. But that may not be the way Congress sees it. The 520-mile, on-land pipeline would be expected to carry 150 million cubic meters of gas a day and would cost about $8 billion to build. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said publicly that WashingtonÂ’s opposition to the project could cripple attempts to finance it in international markets. But all parties are ostensibly going ahead with negotiations. And Washington has repeatedly publicly said it sees the deal as sabotaging its efforts -- with its reluctant European allies -- to halt TeheranÂ’s program to move toward nuclear weapons. A gas deal would provide additional revenues at a time when Iran is in deep economic distress, in part a result of longstanding American bilateral sanctions. India also plays a significant role in TeheranÂ’s economy by providing a large part of the almost half of IranÂ’s imported petroleum products that its own decrepit industry cannot meet. A tangled web of relationships, until the first nuke goes off. Bodman, answering reporters' questions, took the line that the proposed lifting of bans of high-technology transfers to India -- imposed when New Delhi started its own bomb-making program outside the international anti-proliferation treaty that it refused to sign, along with Pakistan means that both countries must now be brought into the anti-proliferation nuclear weapons club. With this history and earlier quarrels between Washington and New Delhi over fuel supplied to a Canadian-built Bombay reactor that had no safeguards against diversion to military use, there may yet be problems with lifting the bans in the U.S. Congress. With its economy growing at 9 percent annually, India is desperate for new sources of imported fuel. But the IPI project is fraught with other difficulties, not the least that gas would have to transit Pakistan, with which New Delhi still has a tenuous relationship after three and a half wars since their mutual independence from Britain. The latest development is a blowup with Islamabad over fees to be charged for transit of the gas. Price negotiations with Teheran, too, have not gone smoothly. I can see India's need for the energy, but deals with Teheran and Islamabad are shakey, to say the least. Who knows who will be in charge in PakLand in the future, and what will the MMs do? Ya wanna bet $8 billion on this horse, if you are the Indian govt? |
| Posted by:Alaska Paul |
| #2 Besides GMD in Eastern Europe + CENASIA, the RUSSIANS are also reportedly not happy about the USA + host nations working to dev alternate pipeline routes. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-03-29 23:02 |
| #1 I would expect this to turn into a security nightmare since pipeline bombings are a way of life over in the world's rectum. if there are holes, the gas will not reach its intended destination and buyers will go elsewhere. Only when the area achieves some semblence of political and religious stability will we need to worry about enriching the MMs. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2007-03-29 19:34 |