ISLAMABAD -- Tehran and Islamabad Friday agreed to undertake a feasibility study on an onshore route for the transfer of Iranian gas to India via Pakistan.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed here on the plan by Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and his Pakistani counterpart Usman Aminuddin, in which the two reiterated their support for laying of the pipeline from Iran to India through Pakistan.

Two other options -- the offshore and the coastal way -- are also on the table. Zanganeh said that the study will determine in the next six or eight months which option should be availed for realization of the project.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Aminuddin, he hailed the MOU as "an important step" towards the implementation of the massive project which involves building a 1,600-km pipeline from Southern Iran to the Sindh Province in Pakistan and another 1,000-km line on to India.

The Iranian minister agreed that there was a need to update the study in view of a new cost of the project and other related matters.

Pakistan, he said, would be benefitting in two ways -- in terms of transit fee and low cost of gas use -- once the project is implemented.

About the financing of the project, Zanganeh maintained that not a single bank but a syndicate of financial institutions would have to be involved.

Aminuddin said during the two rounds of meetings, he discussed with his Iranian counterpart matters pertaining to energy sector, particularly the gas pipeline.

Both sides, he added, also discussed the possibility of Iran importing motor gasoline from Pakistan and Pakistan importing additional quantities of crude oil from Iran.

Pakistan offered its expertise to Iran for establishing a compressed natural gas (CNG) industry in Iran.

The minister of Pakistan also said that Pakistan would shortly send technical experts team to Iran to pursue the matter and look at increased crude oil imports and also take up the issue of terms and conditions with the Iranian authorities.

"We took up modalities of gasoline export to Iran. The brotherly country is expected to buy gasoline and its quantity would be worked shortly," he said.

Aminuddin, regarding petroleum smuggling from Iran to Pakistan, said that he and Zanganeh also agreed that measures should be taken to at least curb the menace if it is impossible to completely eliminate it.

Zanganeh further said that Iran attaches great importance to its brotherly relations with Pakistan. These bonds of fraternity and goodwill, he added, would continue to enlarge and expand particularly in the oil and gas sector in the future.

Zanganeh arrived in Islamabad Thursday on a two-day visit. He has also met with President General Pervez Musharraf, Commerce Minister Abdul Razak Dawood and Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar.

Iranian Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi have already paid visits to Pakistan in recent months, following the fall of the hard-line Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.