India may more for extra Iran LNG
15 Jan 2007
Petroleum minister Murli Deora today said that India would be willing to pay a higher price for extra liquefied natural gas from Iran if it honoured an existing five-million tonne contract.
The minister said that the government had conveyed to the Iranian leaders that they should first honour the existing contract and India would then talk about the price.
Last May, Iran had conveyed to New Delhi its Supreme Economic Council's refusal to approve the five-million tonne LNG deal, contracted at $3.25 per mbtu (million British thermal units) after a sharp decline in oil prices, demanding a higher price.
Deora, who will meet his Iranian counterpart, Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh, later this week in New Delhi, said, "We are looking forward to discussing two pending matters. One is our contract with them for LNG supplies, and the second the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline."
Deora
also said that a secretary-level trilateral meeting
would take place
in Tehran on 20 and 21 January, this year, to discuss
the pipeline and pricing of gas to be supplied to India
and Pakistan through the proposed $7-billion project.
