Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Aug. 12
By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend:
The fourth meeting of the Turkmen-Pakistani Intergovernmental Commission was held in Islamabad last week. Mutual interest in implementation of a transnational Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline construction project was emphasized at the meeting, the Turkmen government reported Aug. 11.
The parties also discussed relevant issues of further development of interstate cooperation in trade and economic spheres, and the implementation of the bilateral agreements reached earlier.
The meeting ended with the signing of a protocol.
Ashgabat has previously stressed that the construction of the TAPI should begin in 2015. A basic document for the TAPI promotion is Ashgabat's interstate agreement of the member-states on the beginning of the practical implementation of this project signed in 2010.
The TAPI design capacity is up to 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
Sales and purchase agreements (SPA) were signed with Indian GAIL Ltd and the State Gas Systems of Pakistan in May 2012. Another SPA was signed with the Afghanistan's Gas Corporation in July 2013.
A service agreement was signed with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in November 2013.
TAPI gas pipeline's total length will be 1,735 kilometres. Some 200 kilometres of the pipeline will run through Turkmenistan, 735 kilometres - through Afghanistan, and 800 kilometres - through Pakistan up to the Fazilka settlement on the Indian border.
Galkynysh - the largest field in Turkmenistan - can serve as a raw material source for TAPI.
Turkmen media earlier said that such companies as Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, BG Group, RWE, Petronas and others familiarized with TAPI conditions and "expressed an intention to take part in it."