Work on TAPI, rival to Iran project, begins
Turkmenistan starts building its part of a $10 billion natural gas pipeline to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India which the US staunchly advocates as a rival to a similar project from Iran.
Leaders of the four countries traveled to a city close to the giant Galkynysh gas field in the central Asian country to attend the ground-breaking ceremony.
The TAPI pipeline will be completed by December 2019 with a capacity of 33 billion cubic meters, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedow told the ceremony.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari also attended the event.
State gas monopoly Turkmengas and another company will build Turkmenistan’s stretch of the TAPI pipeline to the Afghan border.
Turkmengas leads the TAPI consortium named after the four countries and expects to be joined by Western companies at later stages.
However, insecurity in Afghanistan which is facing a resurgent militancy and the region’s complex geopolitics has forced Western giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Total to refrain from committing to the project.
Turkmenistan, which holds the world’s fourth largest natural gas reserves, sees the project vital to its bid to diversify gas exports. The country relies on 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas sold annually to China.
Iran's IPI
The long-delayed project of 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) is a rival to an alternative pipeline which would take Iranian gas to Pakistan and India without the need to cross more than 700 km across Afghanistan.
The US supports the TAPI project while opposing the Iran plan, dubbed as the Peace Pipeline, even though the latter is more viable when both costs and security matters are factored in.
India dropped out of the $7 billion gas pipeline from Iran under US pressure but a July nuclear accord with Tehran has prompted Indian leaders to push for its revival.
Pakistani officials have also said they were hopeful to revive the stalled project. They have said China would build their section of the pipeline – a 700 km stretch - to the Iranian border.
Iran completed the 900 km extension of the pipeline on its territory in 2013. The country’s ambassadors to Dhaka and Beijing have said Iran was also ready to talk extending the gas link to Bangladesh and China.
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