TAPI gas pipeline being built at accelerated pace - Turkmen president
ASHGABAT. April 26 (Interfax) - The president of Turkmenistan, Serdar Berdimuhamedov has invited foreign investors to take part in the project to build the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.
The construction of this pipeline is now "continuing at an accelerated pace and representatives of foreign business have big prospects for cooperation here," Berdimuhamedov said in an address to participants of a forum to attract foreign investment to Turkmenistan's oil and gas industry that opened in Dubai on Wednesday.
The address was published Wednesday in government newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan and the country's other central media outlets.
The president identified priority projects in Turkmenistan's energy sector for foreign investors.
"Another most ambitious project [besides TAPI] is the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline to export Turkmen blue fuel to Europe," he said.
He also said the gradual development of the huge Galkynysh gas field is continuing at an increasing pace. The president said "we attach particular importance to foreign investments in this matter." The field holds 27.4 trillion cubic meters in gas reserves, according to an independent assessment by UK firm Gaffney, Cline & Associates.
"Another priority is the development of licensed blocks in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian with foreign capital on the basis of production sharing agreements," Berdimuhamedov said. Attention is also being devoted to the development of hydrocarbon process, he said.
The TAPI project calls for building a gas pipeline with capacity to carry 33 billion cubic meters per year from the Galkynysh field in Turkmenistan, through the cities of Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan and Quetta and Multan in Pakistan, to Fazilka in western India. The pipeline would stretch 1,814 km, including 207 km in Turkmenistan, 774 km in Afghanistan and 826 km in Pakistan to the border with India.
Construction of the Turkmen section of the pipeline began in December 2015 and is now almost finished.
The groundbreaking for the Afghan section took place in February 2018 and actual construction was expected to begin in August 2021, but the change of power in the country disrupted these plans. The Afghan authorities said in March that they are ready to start practical work on the project.
Construction of Pakistan's section of the TAPI pipeline has been postponed several times, from 2019 to 2020 and so on.
The project earlier secured the approval of Russia, the United States and a number of other countries. The Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Islamic Development Bank, the Saudi Fund for Development and a number of other institutions said they planned to help finance the TAPI project, the cost of which has been estimated at $8 billion-$10 billion.
Turkmenistan has been discussing the possibility of building the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, with capacity of 10 bcm to 30 bcm per year, with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia and the European Union for many years. Russia and Iran opposed its construction for a long time, but in August 2018 the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran signed a convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea at a meeting in Aktau. Under this document, laying a pipeline along the bottom of the Caspian does not require the approval of all Caspian countries, just those through whose sectors of the sea the pipeline is laid. In the case of the Trans-Caspian pipeline, this is Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The EU, meanwhile, has included this pipeline in its list of prospective projects.