TAPI PROJECT GROUND BREAKING IN DECEMBER
Islamabd—The ground breaking ceremony of US backed long awaited Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI) gas pipeline project with initial cost of $7.6 billion will be held at Ashgabat in December this year.
Deputy Prime Minister for Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan and Special Envoy of the President of Turkmenistan, Baymurat Hojamuhamedov informed the Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif about this and communicated the invitation of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow to attend the ceremony.
The government is currently in the process of executing gas and power import agreements with the two Central Asian nations. From Turkmenistan, Pakistan will import gas and from the Kyrgyz Republic it will purchase electricity.
A strategy has to be formulated and in reviewing phase to step up work on the projects as the Pakistan government wants to end power crisis by the end of 2018, when next general elections will be due. For gas import, a pipeline will be built that will start from Turkmenistan and reach India after snaking through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The cost of this project, called TAPI pipeline, may go up to $10 billion because of delay in start of work. Earlier, the cost wasestimated at $7.6 billion.
Sources said that the prime minister wants all stakeholders to start work on the project as swiftly as possible as the cost will continue to rise. The pipeline, which will spread over 1,680 km, will have the capacity to bring 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per annum from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
The Prime Minister thanked for the invitation and said that Pakistan strongly supports the project and its early completion.
The premier said that realizing the TAPI project would meet the energy requirements of the region and will benefit all countries of the region. The Prime Minister discussed the regional connectivity initiative with the Deputy Prime Minister and said that rail/road links between Gwadar and Central Asia would increase the economic activity in the region. He said that Pakistan would facilitate the Turkmenistan and Central Asian countries to develop rail/road links up to Gwadar.
Chairman State Agency for Management & Use for Hydrocarbon Resources, Yagshygeldy Kakaev Ambassador for Turkmenistan, Aladjan Movlamov; Federal Minister for Petroleum, Shahid Khaqan Abassi, Advisor to PM on NationalSecurity, Sartaz Aziz and Minister of State for Petroleum, Jam Kamal attended the meeting.
Earlier, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the Managing Director (MD) World Bank called on Premier Nawaz Sharif, who appreciated the economic turn-around made possible by the policies of the incumbent government and the macro-economic stability achieved by virtue of these policies. The Prime Minister valued the World Banks’ continuous support to Pakistan. Indrawati said that public and private sector confidence has been restored and World Bank considers Pakistan a reliable partner and is looking forward to increasing cooperation. The MD World Bank while appreciating the successful economic turnaround, offered IBRD assistance package of US $2 billion over a period of four years.She assured of World Bank’s interest and support for the initiative.
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