Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Jan. 4
By Huseyn Hasanov – Trend:
Turkmenistan’s Turkmengas State Concern has signed an agreement with the Saudi-German Global Pipe Company, theOil and Gas Complex of Turkmenistan said in a message.
This is about the delivery of a big batch of pipe products meant for the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline in 2018.
This agreement has become one of the outcomes of recent meeting of the Turkmenistan-Saudi Arabia Commission for Trade and Economic Cooperation, held in Riyadh.
During the meeting, issues of trade, economic and investment cooperation were discussed, including in the fuel and energy sector, and concrete agreements were reached in several areas, according to the report.
TAPI entered the active phase in 2010 after signing of an intergovernmental agreement in Ashgabat.
In 2013, governments of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India determined their state-owned gas companies to promote and invest in the TAPI project.
Turkmenistan started to construct its TAPI section in December 2015. The foundation laying ceremony for the Afghan section of the TAPI gas pipeline is planned to be held in the second half of February 2018.
Annual capacity of the gas pipeline will be up to 33 billion cubic meters.
Earlier, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Japanese government expressed their interest in financing TAPI. The Islamic Development Bank has already allocated a loan worth $700 million for Turkmenistan to construct its TAPI section.