Gas pipeline from Iran is a high-stakes game by Bhagyashree Pande The scramble for oil resources poses a unique challenge to Indian oil diplomacy. It requires us to explore new engagements or alternatively imbue traditional political relationships with a new, hydrocarbon-related value, according to Talmiz Ahmed, the present Ambassador to Abu Dhabi, who has worked as an Additional Secretary in the Petroleum Ministry. Transnational gas pipelines are a cheaper and more efficient method of gas transportation in the developing regions of the world and have been so in countries like Europe during the Cold War. With burgeoning energy requirements in rapidly developing areas, gas pipelines are the most cost effective option as against the present method of transporting gas through in the form of LNG. This expensive process requires gas to be liquefied and transported through the sea route and re-gassified at the receivers end. At present India is receiving gas from Qatar in such form at Dahej and Kochi gas terminals. The alternative of getting the gas through a 2775 km pipeline from Iran was mooted in 1993, but the geopolitics of the region prevented the process going any further. The troubled and insurgent regions of Eastern Iran, and Western Pakistan's Balochistan province, are still an area of concern for the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. India is also holding parallel talks to join the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI), but insurgency in southern Afghanistan's Taliban region increases the uncertainty factor. India's requirement of gas is predicted to be around 400 million cubic meters of gas per day (mscmd) by 2025, up from 90-120 mscmd in 2009-10. The IPI pipeline, also know as the