NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- Officials from India, Pakistan and Iran will meet next month in Tehran to take forward a $7.6 billion project to pipe Iranian gas to the South Asian nations, India's oil secretary said on Monday.

India had missed a meeting in September, citing issues with its neighbor, triggering a pledge from Iran and Pakistan to press ahead without Indian participation.
“Bilateral issues have more or less been resolved,” M.S. Srinivasan told reporters, adding he expected Pakistan to support India's stand on the delivery point for the gas.
Iran had said the delivery would be at the Iran-Pakistan border, while India wants it to take place further east at the India-Pakistan frontier, Srinivasan said.
“In our bilateral with Pakistan on April 24, Pakistan said they have no problem with our stand and they will also attend the trilateral meeting and they will help us,” he told reporters.
Analysts say New Delhi wants to reduce the risk of supplies being cut during times of tension between the two long-time rivals.
India and Pakistan are desperate to tie up future energy supplies to fuel their fast-growing economies, but the United States has tried to discourage any deal with Iran in the past, because of Tehran's suspected ambitions to build nuclear arms.
Work on the pipeline is seen beginning next year and could be finished by 2012.
It would initially transport 60 million cubic meters of gas (2.2 billion cubic feet) daily to Pakistan and India, half for each country. The pipeline's capacity would later rise to 150 million cubic meters.
Srinivasan also said there would be no extension of the deadline for bids for its latest oil and gas asset licensing round beyond the end of June. The deadline had been extended three times already, the latest occasion in May.
India optimistic about IPI pipeline: Deora
India said it is optimistic about the ambitious seven billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project taking a concrete shape, Hindustantimes.com quoted.
The three countries already had secretary-level and ministerial-level meetings in this connection, India’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora said in London.
“We have been informed that a final decision on the issue would be taken by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Majlis.”
“We are sure Iran will honour their agreement to provide five million tonnes of liquefied natural gas to India from 2009-10 for 25 years,” Deora told reporters here at the conclusion of his visit to Vienna and the UK.
In Vienna, he attended the 3rd OPEC International Seminar. The minister said “Pakistan is also very keen that the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project goes through.”
The proposed pipeline is expected to transport 90 million standard cubic metres of gas every day from Iran’s South Pars fields to India from 2009-10 onwards while Pakistan would receive 60 million standard cubic meters.
“There are a lot of hurdles but we hope to make things work. We need the gas from Iran to meet energy needs of India and we are committed to make the project happen,” Deora said.
He said “we are also positive about the Turkemenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India (TAPI) pipeline initiative of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).”
Earlier in the day, Deora participated in a conference organized by the Judge Business School, Cambridge at Cambridge on “Business prospects and geopolitics in Central Eurasia”.
During his address, he emphasized the crucial role that Eurasia would play in the energy sector with its hydrocarbon endowment.
Deora outlined a three-point strategy for Indian engagement with the region. They are to actively participate in the development of the hydrocarbons in the Eurasian region by acquisition of equity oil and gas in the region, evacuation of oil and gas through transnational pipelines and a regime of cross investments between them.
Deora said “we had also discussed the idea of a potential gas grid from North and Central Asia to Far East region. China, Korea, Japan and India are expected to drive gas demand in the future whereas North and Central Asia have abundant reserves of gas, making them natural partners.”
“The gas grid envisages pipelines traversing through gas producing countries like Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran etc to gas consumers like China, India, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Pakistan, Turkey etc.”
“The projected benefits of such a gas grid are enormous both in monetary terms as well as in terms of contribution to energy security. This concept, if feasible, can be truly termed as an energy bridge to prosperity. We are also looking at extending the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan pipeline to India.”
Responding to a query on China, the minister said Indian and Chinese companies are working on a framework of cooperation and the joint acquisition in the Colombian Upstream Sector is a fine example of the emerging energy cooperation between the two countries.