TAPI back in the spotlight

Last week’s column highlighted why Pakistan needs to go ahead with TAPI pipeline, and following the Sales and Purchase agreement and the signing of the contract between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, TAPI is well and truly back in the limelight. Furthermore Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India agreeing to form a company with a contribution of $5 million from each party for the pipeline project’s execution and vowing to give it proper shape by September also cements TAPI’s return to the spotlight. And considering the recent escalation in activity apropos TAPI, a Dubai-based consortium “TAPI Ltd” has also been proposed which would have the four participating nations scouting for a leader of the consortium, with ADB being appointed the technical consultant.
The primary reason behind TAPI returning to the forefront of the regional energy game is owing to the Turkmen waking up from their slumber and conjuring a one-two punch on the Afghan and Indian fronts respectively. The interest showed by Turkmenistan in considering New Delhi’s request of a stake in the gas field – TAPI’s gas reservoir – and compromising on Afghan demands in the Sales and Purchase agreement can be dubbed relative masterstrokes by Turkmenistan as far as energy diplomacy is concerned. However, despite the fact that it’s the other three participants who seem to have to upped the ante on TAPI, one can’t help but feel that no one has more to gain from TAPI than Pakistan.
Of course the primary reason behind the claim that Pakistan is the biggest benefactor is the fact it’s Pakistan who has the most crippling energy crisis and the severest gas aridity. Even so, despite the energy predicament – for which Pakistan has other projects in the ‘pipeline’ – arguably the biggest positive extracted from TAPI would be with regards to the security situation in the region – again another issue that impacts Pakistan (and Afghanistan) the most.
The biggest question mark over TAPI, as iterated regularly, was the security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, ironically – or as M K Bhadrakumar put it rather fittingly: in a “classic chicken and egg situation – it is TAPI, and similar projects, which will play a pivotal role in ensuring tranquility in the region.
All the major companies involved in the project – some of them among the Who’s Who of oil and gas firms – would ensure that their investments do not go down the drain by taking responsibility of the project’s security and investing in the social and infrastructural development of the regions that TAPI would traverse. Another thing that would work wonders for the regional uplift – something that is already being worked on by the concerned parties – is that it would bring together India and Pakistan, not only in terms of their bilateral relations, but also as stakeholders in the Afghan question post 2014. Indo-Pak energy cooperation has been touted in this space, and by many a leading writer, as holding the key as far the relations between the India and Pakistan, and the stability in South Asia is concerned.
With the Iran-Pakistan pipeline project taking the back seat, it is important for Pakistan to play its role in the completion of TAPI. Regional security and energy fulfillment are two birds that this stone promises to strike down rather convincingly.
The writer is Energy and Finance Correspondent, Pakistan Today. Email: [email protected]; Twitter: @khuldune