Russia May Join TAPI

Russia is in talks with Turkmenistan in respect to joining the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.

Observers say that this approach is an attempt to further weaken the position of the European backed Nabucco gas pipeline which is meant to reduce dependence on Russian sources of gas.

“If Gazprom becomes a participant in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline then we will study possibilities of working in gas sales,” said Russia’s top energy official, Igor Sechin.

“Gazprom may participate in this project in any role: builder, designer, partner or other,” Sechin told reporters, Bloomberg reported.

“No investor has shown such boldness yet,” he added, noting that Gazprom was willing to sink money into a ‘rather risky project’ to weaken Europe’s efforts to build a pipeline that would bypass Russia.

Sechin accompanied President Dmitry Medvedev on a visit to Turkmenistan for talks with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.

Medvedev told his Turkmen counterpart that Moscow is ready to increase energy cooperation with Turkmenistan. "Energy is the key element of our cooperation and we are ready to develop it in further areas, including electric energy," Medvedev said.

Berdymukhammedov said that Turkmenistan was ready to sell more gas to Russia.

"Russia is an old partner of ours in the energy sector, which is why we are ready to boost exports of Turkmen natural gas to the Russian Federation under existing bilateral agreements," he said.

Turkmenistan, which holds the world’s fourth-biggest natural gas reserves, is looking to diversify energy supplies. Gazprom had until recently been Turkmenistan’s main gas buyer but has dramatically reduced its purchases.

The current volume is still about 20 percent of what Russia was buying from Turkmenistan prior to the April 2009 pipeline explosion that halted deliveries for nine months and highlighted disputes about volume and pricing.

By December 2009, Turkmenistan had commissioned a new pipeline and rerouted to China the volume of gas that Russia was no longer taking — while Russia carried on with negotiations with China to become a major gas supplier.

Turkmenistan is pushing to revive plans to build the TAPI pipeline, which has been stalled since 2002 due to the security situation in Afghanistan.

The project has gained momentum following a series of recent high-level talks and an August agreement between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan to move the project forward.

Analysts have long said that Gazprom is an extension of Russian foreign policy interests and that sometimes, political motivations are furthered at the expense of economic sense.

Sechin was vocal in his disdain for the Nabucco project and Russia has actively courted source nations like Azerbaijan in an attempt to restrict Nabucco's potential gas supply in favour of the Gazprom led South Stream project.

Source: Newswires