EGYPT has offered India a partnership in its multi-billion dollar crude pipeline linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Egyptian oil minister Sameh Fahmy made this offer to his Indian counterpart, Mani Shankar Aiyar, at a meeting on the sidelines of the recent OPEC meeting in Vienna.
The proposed pipeline will be the second to connect the Mediterranian Sea and the Red Sea. The existing link, the Sumed pipeline, links the Ain Sukhna terminal on the Gulf of Suez in the south-east of Egypt with Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean in the north. The pipeline transports about 2.5 million brl/d of crude oil, almost all from Saudi Arabia, from the Red Sea side to the Mediterranian for supplies to Europe and the US.
“If [a second] such a pipeline was set up, it will also benefit India,” the Indian petroleum minister told reporters after his arrival in Vienna. It is learnt that a partnership in the Egyptian pipeline will unlock for India the considerable oil reserves of the Caspian and Black Sea regions, and it will also open an western maritime door for India for oil from Algeria and Libya, where India is pushing hard to get exploration acreage.
Basket is empty.
