WIKILEAKS EXPOSÉ: US wanted Bangladesh gas for India

[kobiraaz]

Dhaka, Mar 21 (bdnews24.com) — Wikileaks has claimed that the US was keen on India importing natural gas from Bangladesh, thus lowering its fuel dependency on Iran.

In a leaked cable, sent by US ambassador to New Delhi David C Mulford to then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on Sep 13, 2005, the envoy told Rice that her upcoming meeting with the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and foreign minister Natwar Singh could create scopes to "challenge India to take equally difficult steps on relations with Tehran".

"New Delhi is trying to support us without alienating Tehran, on whom it depends for current oil supplies, future natural gas imports (pipeline and LNG) and access to Afghanistan and Central Asia," the cable said.

"There is little warmth to the India-Iran relationship, suggesting that India's attachment to Iran could weaken as and when New Delhi is able to secure other energy sources (e.g. gas pipeline from Bangladesh) and alternative access routes to Central Asia (e.g., overland transit through Pakistan)," Mulford pointed out.

In 2002, various lobbies in Bangladesh and outside worked to persuade export of natural gas from the country to India, including the Indian subsidiary of American oil giant Unocal Corporation.

Unocal also submitted a gas export pipeline proposal, known as the Bangladesh Natural Gas Pipeline Project, to the state-run Petrobangla.

Bangladesh has been opposed to the export of gas to India on the pretext that it does not have enough gas reserves to meet its own domestic requirements.

However, Unocal officials say that based on the current domestic gas consumption in Bangladesh, there appeared to be enough gas supplies to last more than 170 years.

 

[DesiGuy]

where is the source?

 

[kobiraaz]

WIKILEAKS EXPOS: BangladeshUS wanted Bangladesh gas for India | | bdnews24.com

 

[madooxno9]

sooner or later we will get that BD gas....as the sitting gov. is a Indian nexus

 

[saleen_s7]

Bangladesh does not have enough gas for the country itself, let alone a country as big as India. Unless we get oil/gold in exchange, it would be pretty stupid for the country to give off our scarce resource. I'm sure even awami league would be opposed to the idea.

 

[eastwatch]

sooner or later we will get that BD gas....as the sitting gov. is a Indian nexus.

Do not ever bet that even your ugly aunti will try to export gas to India. No BD gas officials will ever cooperate with any such attempts. We want India out of our gas reserves. Don't you see in order to avert such an attempt by Delhi, BD itself is seeking LNG import from Qatar instead of developing its own big gas fields. BD will shortly build an offshore unloading platform for the imported LNG.

BD has a probable gas reserve of 32 tcf onland. In the Bay of Bengal, it may have many times more. We better delay to dig these fields so that a desparate India gets supplies from Iran or Turkmenistan. I think, an agreement has already been made among Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on this. When India has plenty of imported gas upto Calcutta, only then BD should move towards developing its large fields.

By the way, India should develop its NE gas fields, that contain more than 30 tcf of gas, and sell it to Bangladesh. To become more friendly, Indian uncles should sell more raw materials and fuels to a developing and power hungry BD.