Turkmenistan and Afghanistan discussed the implementation of the TAPI gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan to India
The Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources of Turkmenistan met in Ashgabat with the delegation of the Ministry of Mines of Afghanistan, the press service of the Turkmen Ministry reported. The theme of the talks was the issues of implementation of the gas pipeline project Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI).
The TAPI gas pipeline 1 thousand 735 km long will start from the eastern region of Turkmenistan, where there are the largest gas fields, and passing through the territory of Afghanistan and Pakistan to reach settlement Fazilka (India) on the Pakistan-Indian border. Long-term supplies of Turkmen natural gas in the volume of over 30 billion cubic meters per year will go through the pipeline.
The heads and senior staff of the relevant ministries and agencies of the two countries agreed on a number of issues related to the building of the transnational energy pipeline directly through the territory of the neighboring states. They also discussed the implementation of existing bilateral agreements on cooperation in the energy sector, specified the basic provisions of certain intergovernmental documents to be considered at the next meetings of the technical working group and steering committee for the TAPI project.
During the meeting, they stressed the importance of creating a new transnational energy corridor, designed to become a bridge of cooperation in this strategically important area, contribute to meeting the growing needs of South Asian energy resources and, therefore, to strengthen their economic potential.
The TAPI project has been in negotiation for more than 15 years. The result of the meeting of the Steering Committee (April of 2008, Islamabad) signed a quadripartite framework agreement to start construction of the Trans-Afghan pipeline to deliver Turkmen gas to South Asia. The cost of the pipeline was estimated at $ 7.6 billion. The first gas deliveries are planned for 2015.
Source: http://www.oilru.com/news/272374/
Translated by: Anstasia Edrenkina
