Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are likely to sign a transaction advisory deal with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the first week of July in an effort to generate over $7.5 billion from leading investors for financing a US-backed gas pipeline to meet growing energy needs.
According to sources, this development is expected to take place in meetings of the steering committee and the working group on the gas pipeline project in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on July 2-3. Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will attend the meetings.
Earlier, the deliberations were scheduled to be held on June 17-19, but were put off in the wake of transition of power to a new government in Pakistan.
Washington has been pushing Islamabad to go ahead with the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline and shelve the Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipeline project due to a standoff with Tehran.
However, the new government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has staved off the pressure and assured Iran that work on the IP project will go on according to the schedule, dealing a big blow to the US campaign.
In 2008, the ADB had warned that the cost of TAPI gas pipeline could escalate to $9 billion following delay in finalising necessary issues compared to initial cost estimate of $7.6 billion based on a pre-feasibility study.
“The countries participating in the TAPI project are now set to sign a deal with the ADB that will act as a transaction adviser to raise funds for the project,” an official said. All countries had agreed to hire the ADB as the transaction adviser, he said.
Under the original project plan, Pakistan will get 1.365 billion cubic feet of gas per day (bcfd) from Turkmenistan, India will also receive the same 1.365 bcfd and Afghanistan will get 0.5 bcfd.
Turkmenistan will export up to 33 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year through a 1,800km pipeline that will start from Turkmenistan and reach India after passing through Afghanistan and Pakistan.