Bloomberg Business quotes Global Energy Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Micha’el Tanchum on the economic gains of developing an undersea pipeline for Iran, Oman, and India:
Micha’el Tanchum is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative and Global Energy Center at The Atlantic Council told Trend Dec.8 that For India, a dedicated pipeline for Persian Gulf natural gas imports would be an important geopolitical gain in its competition with China. “In addition to the claimed commercial advantage for India of undersea piped gas imports over surface-borne LNG imports, New Delhi will have a strong political will to actualize Iranian piped exports via an Iran-Oman-India pipeline. In the long term, Indo-Iranian energy cooperation could facilitate the creation of an alternative Europe-to-Asia corridor to China’s OBOR centered on the western Indian Ocean”.
He added that the same pipeline system could also be used for the transport of natural gas from Qatar to India, thereby creating a nexus of Persian Gulf natural gas suppliers for one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. “The potential would exist for Turkmenistan to export its gas to India across Iran and via the undersea pipeline, possibly providing New Delhi and Ashgabat an alternative delivery route to Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline”.