ISLAMABAD, July 28: Iran, Pakistan and India are going ahead with th eir $4 billion gas pipeline project despite Bush Administration’s serious reservations over it, it is learnt. Informed sources told Dawn on Thursday that the US concern had not made the three countries to put brakes on, or even slow down, the project as talks on its various aspects were continuing.

“The gas project is very much on the cards and will not be abandoned,” a source close to the talks said. There is no problem of arranging funds for the 2,670km pipeline either as international banks and institutions consider it a feasible project.

Sources said that Italy’s ENI company, the sixth largest oil and gas producing concern in the world, had expressed willingness to finance the project. Some Indian concerns are also reported to be willing to finance it.

A meeting presided over by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday discussed Pakistan’s growing energy needs and decided to pursue the three proposed gas projects. Under other projects, gas will come from Turkmenistan and Qatar.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s comments in Washington earlier this month that the Iran-Pakistan-India project was fraught with risks and that it would be difficult to get an international consortium of bankers to underwrite it were described as ‘politically motivated’ and meant for public consumption. His comments, the sources said, were seen as contradictory to Indian Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar’s latest statement in which he said that New Delhi would go ahead with the project as scheduled.

Two technical groups were conceptualizing the project structure with a view to making it safe, especially to the satisfaction of the Indians, the sources said.

“Both Pakistan and Iran have assured India that there will be no security problem to the pipeline,” a source said. Unlike the scepticism aired by the Indian media, technical experts in that country do not have two opinions about the importance of the pipeline or the sovereign guarantees offered by Pakistan for its security under an international agreement.

The source said that India was seeking subsidized gas prices from Iran and that was the reason it was talking about the so-called risks. The pipeline would run about 1,115km in Iran, 705km in Pakistan and 850km in India. Pakistan would be required to invest around $1 billion to lay its part of the pipeline from the Iranian border to the India border.

The three countries are expected to firm up separate consortia for building the pipeline in their territories. It is learnt that the Pakistan-India joint working group, which met in New Delhi recently, held preliminary discussions on the proposal.

A final decision, the sources said, would be taken once the transaction structure developed. Pakistan and India would soon appoint separate consultants to prepare structure for the formulation of consortia and other pros and cons of the project.