Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.17
By Nigar Guliyeva – Trend:
The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) announced that it will continue to support the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline project.
In a 5-year Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for Turkmenistan, the Bank revealed that ADB will continue to support the project, including the possibility of providing financial advice, financing shareholder equity in TAPI pipeline company, and non-sovereign loans, and credit enhancement.
"ADB will support transport infrastructure investments to improve market access and regional connectivity," the bank reported.
The Bank stressed that regional power interconnection projects such as Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TUTAP), Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP), and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline project will be the primary vehicles of ADB support to diversify Turkmenistan’s power and natural gas export markets to South Asia.
ADB has been instrumental for TAPI’s progress to date, serving as the TAPI secretariat since 2003 and, more recently, acted as transaction advisor.
The total length of the TAPI pipeline will be 1,814 kilometers. A 214-kilometer section of the pipeline will run through Turkmenistan, a 774-kilometer section will run through Afghanistan and an 826-kilometer section will run through Pakistan to Fazilka settlement on the border with India. The pipeline’s annual capacity will be 33 billion cubic meters of gas.
Construction of the Turkmen section of TAPI started in 2015 and is scheduled to be finished in late 2018.