Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec.22 / Trend T. Konyayeva /
Funding of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project will be considered after the final version of the project will be prepared, Pil-Bae Song, Director of the Energy Division of the Central and West Asia Regional Department of the Asian Development Bank, said.
In September, during the sixth meeting of leading international experts of the Technical working group on the TAPI gas pipeline project held in Ashgabat, ADB representatives expressed interest in the accelerated implementation of the pipeline, which is estimated at $7.6 billion
ABD in 2005 funded the development of the feasibility study of the project, according to which the pipeline will stretch for 1,735 kilometers from the major Dovletabad field in eastern Turkmenistan, will pass through Herat and Kandahar provinces (Afghanistan), Quetta District (Pakistan) and reach Fazilk settlement (India) on the Pakistan-Indian border.
Ashgabat hosted the summit of the TAPI gas pipeline project's participant states on Dec.11, as a result of which the leaders of three countries, as well as the Indian Minister of Oil and Natural Gas Murli Deora signed a framework agreement on the gas pipeline and an intergovernmental agreement on the TAPI gas pipeline project.
It is expected that the pipeline, whose construction is scheduled to be completed by late 2014, will allow transporting 33 billion cubic meters of gas annually, only about 18 billion cubic meters of which India is ready to buy. Nevertheless, the signed agreements don't contain many of the necessary details, such as the exact date of the implementation of the project, the amount of the transit rates, as well as financing terms.
Project participants have to find banks and companies that wish to join the consortium to build the pipeline. It is assumed that part of costs will be covered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
"There have been discussions among the concerned parties on many aspects of TAPI, but no concrete agreement has been reached on the issue of security and tariff," Song said.
According to him, for this scale of project, all aspects must be considered and there will be continued discussions as the project progresses.
The first concerns about the safety of the project are that part of the pipeline passes through the territories of Afghanistan, which are controlled by the Taliban.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan can receive significant benefits from the project, which will contribute to raising the country's economy, creating many new jobs, building social infrastructure and political stability throughout the region.
Transit fees will fill up Afghanistan's budget with hundreds of millions of dollars. In this case, 5 billion cubic meters of the Turkmen gas will be directed to meet Afghanistan's needs.