BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 11
By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:
Construction of the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) gas pipeline continues on the Turkmen side, the Embassy of Turkmenistan in Azerbaijan told Trend.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have completed the preliminary design and feasibility study of the project as well as environmental impact assessment.
Earlier, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov instructed the country's deputy prime minister to continue monitoring the pipeline construction process. The president also stressed the need to expand the participation of international organizations, financial institutions, and oil and gas companies in the project, which is particularly important for Afghanistan, the embassy said.
TAPI will improve the country's socio-economic infrastructure and help create new jobs. The construction on the Afghan territory began in February 2018.
Following the project commissioning, Afghanistan will annually get 500 million cubic meters of gas during first ten years. The amount will increase to one billion cubic meters of gas in the following ten years and 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas in the third decade.
The length of the Turkmen section of the TAPI pipeline, the construction of which was launched in December 2015, will be 205 kilometers (the main operations are carried out on the 120th kilometer). The pipeline will pass through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar (816 kilometers), through the cities of Quetta and Multan across Pakistani territory (819 kilometers), and reach the city of Fazilka in India.
The pipeline’s design capacity is planned to be 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year, and the project’s cost - about $8 billion.
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