Close on the heels of initiating a dialogue with Iran and Myanmar on importing gas through onland pipelines, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar will soon visit Turkmenistan and Afghanistan to explore the possibility of bringing natural gas from Central Asia to energy-hungry India.
"I soon intend visiting Turkmenistan and Afghanistan to see whether pipelines could not run from the heart of Central Asia to the hydrocarbon-hungry markets of South Asia," he said at the India-Kazakhstan Joint Commission meeting.
New Delhi has already reached an in-principle agreement with Myanmar to import gas through a pipeline transiting through Bangladesh and is discussing similar imports from Iran via an onland pipeline passing through Pakistan.
India is now contemplating joining the Asian Development Bank-supported Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline.
"Our continent is home to the largest deposits of oil. It is also the gas reservoir of the world, holding more than half the gas reserves established globally. It is by tapping these vast reserves of energy that the West has overtaken us in the last few centuries," he said.
