India-based oil & gas industry body, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) has urged the Indian ministry of petroleum and natural gas to extend its support to a subsea natural gas pipeline project being developed by a global consortium led by the South Asia Gas Enterprises (SAGE), which will bring natural gas directly from the Middle East to India.
”One of the important features of this pipeline corridor is that it will completely bypass Pakistan thus averting major threat perception from fundamentalist elements and resultant supply disruption,” said D S Rawat, secretary general of Assocham.
According to Assocham, the subsea natural gas pipeline from the Middle East to India has assumed more significance as other gas line projects likIran-Pakistan-India (IPI) and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) have made little progress.
SAGE has undertaken a project to build the deepest underwater transnational gas pipeline, also known as the Middle East to India Deepwater Pipeline (MEIDP), to connect the gas rich Gulf & Middle East regions to India for the transportation of Natural Gas to fulfil India’s energy needs.
”The concerned pipeline project is planned to be set up on common carrier basis and it would allow gas suppliers and buyers to buy and sell gas on commercial terms and transport it to India after payment of competitive pipeline tariff to SAGE. Considering the anticipated shortage of natural gas in the future, even the public sector companies like Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Engineers India Limited (EIL) are co-operating with the SAGE through arrangements like memorandum of understanding (MoU) or Proof of Contact (PoC) to develop the project,” said Rawat.
