Baku, Azerbaijan, June 11
By Elena Kosolapova - Trend: Construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline will take about three years, Senior Advisor at Asia Development Bank's Central and West Asia Department Chin Choon Fong told Trend.
ADB is a transaction advisor for the TAPI project.
"Construction of the pipeline will begin after the consortium leader has resolved outstanding technical, financial and legal challenges. We estimate the actual construction period to take about three years," Fong said.
Fong noted that feasibility study developed for the project in 2008, estimated total cost of TAPI construction at $7.6 billion, but now it is projected to exceed $10 billion.
In October 2014 the ADB awarded British company Penspen a contract to carry out a feasibility study for the construction of TAPI pipeline. Penspen awarded a sub-contract to the Netherlands-based Royal HaskoningDHV an international engineering, consultancy and project management firm to undertake the important environmental and social safeguards components of the study.
The technical feasibility should be developed for a proposed 1,820 kilometers long, 56 inch diameter pipeline from Turkmenistan's giant Galkynysh Gas Field, to serve energy markets in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
The Technical Feasibility Study was expected to take six months to complete, however it has not been completed yet.
"This is a large and complex project, and it is difficult to give a precise date for the completion of this study. However, we expect the study will be ready in the near future," Fong said.
Experts believe that the main obstacle for the implementation of the pipeline is the security problems in the transit countries - Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"The security challenges were analyzed very carefully and plans have been developed to mitigate and overcome them," according to the ADB representative.
He stressed that the consideration of the security aspects of the pipeline has been at the forefront of the planning process.
Turkmenistan's Ministry of Oil and Gas Industry and Mineral Resources previously said that an international tender would be announced soon to choose the leader of TAPI consortium.
The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Natural Gas Pipeline (TAPI) Project aims to export up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year through a proposed approximately 1,800-kilometer pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Edited by CN
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