TAPI Pipe 'To Be Complete by 2020'

The ambitious Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline will be complete by December 2020, as per schedule, Pakistani state-owned Associated Press of Pakistan reported May 2, citing government sources who said the project would be completed in time and within the cost.  

Many experts however doubt the project will ever be built, despite high-level support from the Asian Development Bank, because of the high security risks as the route traverses war-torn Afghanistan. 

The process of initiating front-end engineering and design (Feed), route surveying, and the process to finalise the right of way in Pakistan for the TAPI gasline was kicked off in March. A similar Feed, right of way and route survey exercise started upstream in Afghanistan in February and will take about six months to complete.

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

If built, TAPI 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. The project was formally inaugurated in December 2015.

In January 2017, TAPI's planned completion was deferred by one year until 2020 because of Turkmengaz's inability to achieve financial closure on the project, according to newspaper The News citing Pakistan government officials. Turkmenistan's abrupt cut-off of gas exports to Iran at the New Year may also have undermined confidence in the project.

Shardul Sharma