Responding to the friendly overtures from Pakistan's new ruling party, a delegation of Indian officials is headed to Lahore on June 9 to offer natural gas supply through a pipeline to help ease the neighbour's energy crisis.

The decision, sources said, was taken at the top level on Monday, two days before Nawaz Sharif was sworn in as prime minister. India will offer to extend its gas pipeline to the Wagah border, after which Pakistan can take it to its users. The gas, amounting to 1.5 million tonnes per annum, would be sourced by India from Qatar and offered without charging a marketing premium.

"This is a test case before we enter into an agreement with Pakistan for the TAPI pipeline," a GAIL official said, referring to the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline. "This is a small step to win its confidence."

The official said the existing pipeline up to Jalandhar had surplus capacity because of a drop in domestic gas availability and its extension to Amritsar and into Pakistan would ensure better capacity utilisation.

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