Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 28
By Ali Mustafayev - Trend:
Pakistan is a country with increasing energy demand, in particular oil and gas, and TAPI is the project which may provide the shortest route for the gas transportation from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, Ambassador of Pakistan to Azerbaijan Saeed Khan Mohmand told Trend.
"The obstacles that currently slow down the work on the project include the insecure situation in Afghanistan. For this reason the realization of TAPI project is in question until there is peace in Afghanistan, and the country wouldn’t be able to ensure the security of the pipeline passing through its territory,” said Mohmand.
He added that Pakistan needs Central Asian gas, because the demand for energy products increases every year along with the population of Pakistan.
“We would like to see the political stability and security of Afghanistan. We have a trade volume of $2.5 billion with Afghanistan, which is a quite large amount in terms of regional cooperation. Most of the Afghan products are being transported through Pakistan, including oil, gas, tea, milk. We have a 2000-km border with Afghanistan and of course the instability in neighboring country is not a positive fact for our country.”
The insecure situation in Afghanistan may also have an impact on CASA (Central Asia-South Asia) 1000 project, which is intended to import hydroelectricity form Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the ambassador stated.
The TAPI pipeline was intended to link the regions of Central Asia and South Asia and transport up to 33 bcm of natural gas. Turkmen gas is expected to help cover the growing need for blue fuel in India and Pakistan, where by 2030, the needs could jump up by half. The pipe will also reduce the constant shortage of energy resources in transit Afghanistan.
The construction of the Turkmen section of the TAPI was launched in December 2015. The planned length of the pipeline is 1.814 kilometers, including 214 kilometers in the territory of Turkmenistan, 774 kilometers in Afghanistan, 826 kilometers of Pakistan to the settlement of Fazilka on the border with India. The project's preliminary cost is estimated at $10 billion.