Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Aug.20 / Trend, H.Hasanov /
Turkmenistan has sufficient gas to provide India's fast-growing economy with this fuel, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake told journalists.
"We see that TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline is particularly important because it's going to join two of the most important end-points in this regional connectivity that we talk about, Turkmenistan and India," Blake said.
He said India, of course, has gigantic energy needs because of its fast-growing economy
"They need lots of gas. I think that is what really helped drive this project. There is now a real market in India and they can afford to pay for the gas. Turkmenistan has sufficient gas to fuel this pipeline," he said.
Blake said the U.S. has always supported the development of multiple pipelines out of Turkmenistan and other countries as well to support their energy independence
"The pipeline would also provide significant transit revenues for both Afghanistan and Pakistan," he added.
The length of TAPI could reach 1,680 kilometers, with a design capacity of 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. The route is planned from the Turkmen Dovletabat fields through Herat and Kandahar (Afghanistan), via the districts of Quetta (Pakistan), to Fazlaka on the India-Pakistan border.
The base document for the promotion of TAPI is the Ashgabat agreement of the state parties on the early implementation of the project signed at the end of 2010. The issue of security of the project passing through troubled Afghanistan is still on the agenda.
Turkmenistan has signed a memorandum of understanding on the TAPI project with Afghanistan. At the same time the purchase agreements of Turkmen gas were signed with the State Gas Systems of Pakistan and Indian GAIL ltd.