India may lose both Iran and Turkmenistan gas pipeline projects

Mumbai: Pakistan has warned that the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project could become an Iran-Pakistan-China (IPC) project with New Delhi ''delaying'' the joint venture, even as energy experts feel that a competing Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project may not be realised.

While India may opt to join the project whenever it chooses to do so, Pakistan could not delay the venture any further due to its growing energy requirements, foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said after President Asif Ali Zardari's just-concluded visit to China.

''The IPI project can become the IPC (Iran-Pakistan-China) project or even if it is the IP (Iran-Pakistan) project, China can invest in it,'' he said.

The gas pipeline could feed energy-deficient areas in China bordering Pakistan, he added.

Even as India, which stayed away from the past few trilateral meeting, gears up to resume talks on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, Pakistan is actively pursuing China to join the $7.4 billion project. China, however, has given no firm commitment on joining the project.

Energy experts, meanwhile, are of the view that there may not be enough gas reserves to warrant the setting up of a competing Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project.

Also, the conditions prevailing in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a major cause for concern.

The pipeline is estimated to cost $8 billion and according to original projections, work should start in 2010 and end after five years. Experts, however, suggest that a linking of Turkmenistan's Daulatabad reserve to the IPI gas pipeline may help solve the problem.