Tapi Work in Pakistan to Start Feb

Pakistan is set to start work on the much delayed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (Tapi) gas pipeline this month, according to a report published in Express Tribune February 2. Project management contract has been awarded to German firm ILF, which will conduct route survey, detailed engineering and feasibility study in the current month.

“A team from Turkmenistan will reach Islamabad on February 14 to begin work on the route survey, engineering and feasibility study to implement the Tapi pipeline project,” a senior government official told the newspaper. The team will first start work in Pakistan and then it will proceed to Afghanistan.

Representatives of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan & India at Tapi inauguration ceremony in December 2015 (Credit: Indian foreign ministry)

The Tapi pipeline is projected to export up to 33bn m³/yr from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India over 30 years. Turkmengaz is the leader of the consortium and has 85% equity. Indian Gail, ISGS of Pakistan and Afghan Gas Enterprise (AGE) share the remaining 15% equally.

Late last month, another Pakistani newspaper The News reported that the multi-billion dollar four-nation Tapi gas pipeline has been delayed by one year because of the inability of Turkmengaz to achieve financial closure. Turkmengaz was earlier scheduled to achieve financial closure of the mega project by December 2016, but now it is supposed to attain it in June 2017. This has actually delayed the commissioning of the project till 2020, The News reported.

However, talking to Express Tribune, ISGS managing director Mobin Saulat said that efforts to achieve financial close were going on and the project would be commissioned as per schedule.

Meanwhile, many experts doubt the project will ever be built, despite high-level support from the Asian Development Bank, because its route traverses war-torn Afghanistan.Turkmenistan has giant gas reserves and its main customer, China, is taking less than Turkmenistan has to sell, as the forthcoming issue of NGW explains; this adds extra impetus to the upstream end of the project.

Shardul Sharma