Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will discuss the acceleration of implementation of the gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India (TAPI) during a tour across the Central Asia, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of India Navtej Sarna said at a briefing July 3, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
The Indian leader will visit five Central Asian countries - Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan July 6-13.
"TAPI will certainly become an issue that will be discussed (during the tour of the prime pinister)," Sarna said. "We need to explore the possibilities of implementation of this project as soon as possible. It has a huge potential, which will allow India access to Central Asian gas."
The meeting of the TAPI steering committee was held in Ashgabat in late 2014. A decision was made to announce an international tender to choose a TAPI Ltd. consortium leader in early 2015.
Turkmengaz State Concern, Afghan Gas Corporation, Pakistan's "Inter State Gas Systems (Private) Limited" and Indian "GAIL (India) Limited" with equal shares have recently established "TAPI Ltd." operating company. It will own the pipeline in the future. The project implementation can begin in 2015.
The basic document for its implementation is Ashgabat's interstate agreement signed among the participating countries in 2010.
The length of TAPI gas pipeline will be 1,800 kilometers, of which 200 kilometers will run though Turkmenistan, 773 kilometers - Afghanistan, 827 kilometers - Pakistan (to Fazilka settlement on the border with India). It is designed to meet the gas demand of the industry of the countries with the population of over 1.5 billion. The annual pumping capacity of the gas pipeline will be 33 billion cubic meters.
Edited by CN