Iran says it has moved a step forward in a project to export natural gas to India through a subsea pipeline – what could be the world’s biggest such project if materialized.    

Alireza Kameli, the managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC), has been quoted by the media as saying that India has informed Iran that the technical studies it has carried out over the project show that it is “feasible”.

Kameli added that India had commissioned several European companies to conduct studies over the project that had been a subject of discussions between Tehran and New Delhi for years.

“The required investments for the project and its implementation are to be carried out by an Indian company,” the official has been quoted by IRNA as saying without naming the Indian company.

The project to export Iran’s gas to India originally envisaged creating a pipeline link that would also involve Pakistan. The three countries had been discussing over the project for over a decade but were unable to arrive at an agreement to get it off the ground.

Analysts believe that a series of problems plagued what was known as the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) Project - or the Peace Pipeline Project – including disputes over pricing as well as concerns over the security of the pipeline specifically a key part of it that would pass through Pakistan’s restive regions before reaching India.

Later, India withdrew from the project and Iran and Pakistan continued their talks to create the link between themselves. Iran has already taken the pipeline to its border with Pakistan but talks over extending it into Pakistan are not making progress over a series of technicalities including funding and pricing.

After the removal of the sanctions against Iran in early 2016, India resumed talks over importing natural gas from Iran through a subsea pipeline that would bypass Pakistan and go through the Sea of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

“The pipeline will be about 1,400 kilometers and in some points would go down as deep as 3,500 meters,” Kameli added in his interview with IRNA.

“No prior pipe-laying operation at this length and depth has ever been carried out anywhere in the world.”

The closest project, IRNA added, may be a subsea pipeline project from Norway to Britain which is 1,200 kilometers.

The report further added that the company which is already focused on the project could be SAGE India. It said the company has already signed a gas purchase contract with Iran and previously announced that it would construct the pipeline from Iran as soon as the sanctions against the Islamic Republic are lifted.

Based on the related early agreements, Iran is to export as much as 31 million cubic meters per day of gas to India through the subsea pipeline project once it is ready, IRNA added.