The Indian government, however, has said nothing about any such agreement.
The Mehr news agency quoted Namju as saying he would sign an agreement on electricity sales Sunday with his Indian counterpart, Farooq Abdullah when they met in Tehran.
But on Monday, the Indian government issued a news release saying the two ministers had agreed to cooperate in promoting renewable energy. The news release said nothing about any electricity sales.
Iran has been avidly promoting electricity sales and provides varying amounts of electricity to every one of the seven countries with which Iran shares land borders.
The main problem with selling electricity to India is that it would have to pass across Pakistan. Pakistan would have to be part of any agreement and it was not a party to the meeting between the Indian and Iranian energy ministers Sunday.
Mehr quoted Namju as saying Iran would sell India 5,000 megawatts of electricity, a huge volume considering that Iran’s production capacity just recently reached 64,000 megawatts, according to Namju. He said another 25,000 would be added over the next three years, however.
Iran spent years negotiating over the sale of natural gas to India, talks which have gone nowhere. Gas was to piped across Pakistan, but India said it stopped talking when Iran would not budge over its demand that India pay for the gas when it reached the Pakistani border, not when it reached the Indian border, a demand unacceptable to India because it would then have to pay for the gas if Pakistan seized it.
There were also talks over the supply of Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG) by ship, which would avoid the border issue. But those talks have gone nowhere either, largely because Iran’s LNG program is moving at a snail’s pace since it is denied Western funds and technology.
