India Qatar seal six agreements in diverse areas

India and energy-rich Qatar, home to half a million Indians, yesterday sealed six agreements in diverse areas, which included an overarching pact on cooperation in oil and gas exploration.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh held talks with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who is on a three-day visit to India on a range of issues, including boosting trade and investment as also cementing energy ties between the two countries.

Issues relating to the welfare of Indian workers in the Gulf country also came up for discussion.

During the talks, India is understood to have expressed its keenness to import more oil and LNG from Qatar, to which the Qatari side is said to be broadly receptive, but certain pricing issues remain to be sorted out.

Following the talks, India's petroleum minister S Jaipal Reddy and Qatar's energy minister Mohammed Bin Saleh al-Sada signed a pact on establishment of a framework to enhance bilateral cooperation in oil and gas.

The pact envisages cooperation in the areas of upstream and downstream oil and gas activities and is expected to encourage and promote investment and cooperation between two ministries of oil and gas and through affiliated companies.