IRAN HAS agreed to explore possibilities of extending the 2600-km Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline to China, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said. Mr Aiyar, who headed the Indian delegation at the ministerial level talks with Iran on natural gas imports, said “Iran will start a “serious dialogue with the Chinese on whether this pipeline could be extended to China.”
During his discussions with Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh, he also asked for extension of the quantity of LNG Iran will export to India from 2009-10 to 7.5 million tons from the 5 million tones already agreed.
India also wants the LNG composition to be similar to that it receives from Qatar, as far as possible. Since Qatar's LNG contains nearly 9.5% C2/C3/C4 components, Iran should at least commit to 5% C2, as it is likely to extract most of the C3 and C4 fractions.