(From left) Iranian deputy oil minister Mohammad-Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, Pakistan’s petroleum secretary Ahmad Waqar and his Indian counterpart M.S. Srinivasan in Islamabad on Monday. (AFP)

Islamabad, May 22 (PTI): Senior petroleum ministry officials of India, Pakistan and Iran today held talks on pricing, trilateral framework and appointment of consultants to carry out feasibility studies on the proposed 2,600-km IPI gas pipeline.

Ahead of the two-day trilateral meeting, Iran and Pakistan held a bi-lateral meeting yesterday. During the meeting sharp differences surfaced between Iran’s deputy oil minister M.H. Hosseinian and Pakistan’s petroleum secretary Ahmad Waqar on the issue of pricing and modalities for supplying gas to India.

Union petroleum secretary M.S. Srinivasan, heading a 10-member Indian delegation, joined the two-day talk on the $7-billion pipeline here today.

Besides differences on pricing, Iran reportedly sought an assurance from Pakistan that it would not sell gas to India under the IPI, local daily The News reported.

However, Pakistan did not agree, saying that once the gas was purchased, the seller had nothing to do with it. Differences also arose between the two countries over the issue of pricing as they proposed divergent pricing formulae for the project.

Iran had come up with a new formula, linking the price of its gas with the Southeast Asia-Qatar market, under which the delivery price offered to Pakistan was high, reports in the media here quoted officials as saying.