BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 11
By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:
Pakistan has already started developing an appropriate strategy for including Turkmenistan in the trade cooperation of the five Central Asian countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Trend reports, citing the “SNG.Seqodna” (CIS.Today) information portal.
Further work on this issue will be carried out this year in the framework of the 6th meeting of the joint intergovernmental commission.
As reported, Pakistan and Turkmenistan will continue to increase bilateral cooperation and interaction in various fields. Over the years of a long-term partnership, the countries have reached new frontiers in expanding cooperation.
Turkmenistan and Pakistan cooperate in a number of areas, in particular in the oil and gas sector. One of the main indicators of cooperation between the countries in the oil and gas sector is the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.
The Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India Pipeline (TAPI), also known as Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, is a natural gas pipeline being developed by the Galkynysh – TAPI Pipeline Company Limited with the participation of the Asian Development Bank.
The pipeline will transport natural gas from the Galkynysh Gas Field in Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India. Construction on the project started in Turkmenistan on December 13, 2015.
The length of the Turkmen section of the TAPI pipeline, the construction of which was launched in December 2015, will be 205 kilometers (the main operations are carried out on the 120th kilometer). The pipeline will pass through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar (816 kilometers), through the cities of Quetta and Multan across Pakistani territory (819 kilometers), and reach the city of Fazilka in India.
The pipeline’s design capacity is planned to be 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year, and the project’s cost - about $8 billion.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva