Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Dec. 11 / Trend H.Hasanov /
Ashgabat will today host a high-level summit of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project's participant countries. The event is expected to be attended by the heads of the three Asian countries and senior representatives from Delhi.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has already arrived in Ashgabat and Turkmen President Gurbangulu Berdimuhammedov. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Indian Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora are expected to arrive in Ashgabat soon.
"This high-level meeting will be an important step in accelerating the implementation of a vast infrastructure project aimed at strengthening global energy security and designed to make a concrete contribution to the Asia region's sustainable socioeconomic development," the Neytralniy Turkmenistan paper wrote.
The length of the 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.
Ashgabat hopes to include "Southern Yoloten-Osman" in addition to the Dovletabad Field in the project. Its reserves, according to recent data, are estimated at 21 trillion cubic meters of gas, and will serve as the resource base for TAPI.