President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov has urged newly appointed heads of the country’s oil and gas sector to accelerate implementation of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, Turkmen TV reported on Friday.
According to the report, “stressing the need to intensify work to accelerate the construction of a transcontinental Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, President Berdimuhammadov emphasized the importance of the gas transporting pipeline, designed to not only ensure long-term supplies of the Turkmen gas to the countries in South Asia, but also become a strong stimulus for further socio-economic development of the whole region”.
Ashgabat reported recently that an agreement in principle was reached with Pakistan on the cost of Turkmen gas and an agreement will be signed soon.
The price of transit through the Afghan territory remains unresolved. At this stage, a principle of forming an international consortium is under discussion, and the project financing issue is being resolved. Russia attaches interest to this project at a high level and its implementation is supported by the United States, which is against a similar project from Iran to Pakistan.
Implementation of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project is vital for Pakistan experiencing difficulties with shortage of natural gas, recently local media outlets quoted Pakistani Minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar as saying.
“Price of gas received under this project will be lower than under the similar gas pipeline from Iran the minister was quoted as saying. He noted the project is likely to be implemented by 2016.
The basic document for the project’s promotion will be Ashgabat interstate agreement of the member states on start of initial implementation of TAPI project signed in late 2010.
The gas pipeline’s designed capacity is 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The buyers are gas companies of Pakistan and India.
The project is promoted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Besides Dovletabad deposit, the largest ‘Southern Yeloten – Osman’ (Galkynysh) deposit developed in Turkmenistan may also become the raw materials base. The length of the pipeline may be 1,735 kilometers.
