TAPI Work in Pakistan to Start March 3

The process of initiating front-end engineering and design (Feed), route survey and the process to finalise the right of way in Pakistan for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gasline will formally kick off March 3, according to Pakistani newspaper The News International.

The Tapi pipeline is projected to export up to 33bn m³/yr from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India over 30 years. Turkmengaz is the leader of the consortium and has 85% equity. Indian Gail, ISGS of Pakistan and Afghan Gas Enterprise (AGE) share the remaining 15% equally.

Representatives of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan & India at Tapi inauguration ceremony in December 2015 (Credit: Indian foreign ministry)

According to a senior government official the exercise to complete Feed, route of survey and right of way will take up to six months before starting to lay the 800 km of pipeline in Pakistan. Project management contract has been awarded to German firm ILF.

A similar Feed, right of way and route survey exercise started upstream in Afghanistan last month and will take about six months to complete.

Many experts doubt the project will ever be built, despite high-level support from the Asian Development Bank, owing to the great security risks. The route traverses war-torn Afghanistan. 

Shardul Sharma