Survey work on the new route has begun survey work, although the country has yet to secure a gas import deal with Myanmar, which is also considering sales to China and Thailand. "Bangladesh wanted India to reduce the huge bilateral trade deficit, allow transit to Nepal and Bhutan, and sale of electricity from those countries to Bangladesh through Indian territory," a senior Indian foreign ministry official is reported to have said. "These are essentially bilateral issues and cannot become part of a trilateral agreement. If we accept such conditions once we would be setting a bad precedent," the official said. India plans to import gas from two offshore blocks, with Indian state energy firms owning 30% in each block, and the new pipeline route is expected to cover a distance of 1,400km. India's rapidly-growing economy, Asia's third-largest, has witnessed energy demand soar, and it imports 70% of its crude oil and around 50% of the gas it consumes. The government, as a result, has been aggressively pursuing plans to build transnational gas pipelines and is also seeking foreign oil assets to feed demand. Besides the project in Myanmar, which says it has the world's tenth-biggest gas reserves estimated at more than 90tr cuft, New Delhi is also planning gas pipelines from Iran and Turkmenistan. However, India, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a trilateral agreement early last year to build the 290km pipeline for New Delhi's first such international project. If the plan had gone ahead, Bangladesh had expected to get about $350m in investment and to earn $100m in annual transmission fees. Bangladesh also expected to get another $100m as one-off right of way charges from the project, and $25m each year for sharing the project's management.