“India has forwarded an invitation to Bangladesh to send a representative for the talks,” petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar told reporters; Bangladeshi representatives were reported to be unaware of any such invitation. “There has been no indication that there were to be trilateral talks,” a Bangladeshi embassy official said, although he went on: “There is expectation that the Indian petroleum minister would be visiting Bangladesh soon for further talks.”

Myanmar is keen on India claiming its share from the gas rich A-1 Block in Myanmar in which ONGC Videsh and GAIL together hold a 30% share. The two Indian companies were recently expected to formally sign the contract for acquisition of another 3% stake in the A-3 block in Myanmar. According to the original proposalm, discussed and agreed upon in January, a 900-km pipeline was to be routed from the Shwe field’s Block A-1 in Myanmar’s Arakan state through the Indian states of Mizoram and Tripura before crossing Bangladesh to reach Kolkata. The estimated cost of the pipeline is about $10 million. But with Bangladesh wanting India to first address issues like reducing its trade imbalance, providing a corridor for Nepalese goods to Bangladeshi ports, and access to the hydroelectric potential of Bhutan, India and Myanmar are considering an alternative route.

The alternate route from Myanmar to India via the northeast will see the pipeline length extend to about 1,400km, which would be more expensive and difficult to execute “but it would at the same time do away with the need to pay transit fee of an estimated $125 million annually to Bangladesh,” official Indian sources said.

Bangladesh has made it known that it is not averse to being excluded from the proposed gas pipeline project, although India is keen to pursue the tri-nation project. As India explores alternate sources from which to import gas and oil, Myanmar is seen as one of the most economical routes to bring in environment-friendly gas. Other than the pipeline, India is also studying options of bringing gas in the form of compressed natural gas (CNG).