ISLAMABAD – Pakistan makes important development over the $8 billionTransnational TAPI pipeline project.
Pakistan is in the process of renegotiating the gas price with Tapi ProjectCompany Limited (TPCL). Construction work will begin on Pakistan’s sectionof the multibillion-dollar transnational gas pipeline in Chaman after thenegotiations.
“We are keen to have a new compatible gas price under theTurkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (Tapi) project. Accordingly,renegotiations for the gas price will take place with TPCL before the startof work on the project in Pakistan,” a senior official privy topetroleum-sector developments told APP.
He is confident that Pakistan will complete phase-I of the project within30 months after initiating groundwork for laying the pipeline from Chamanto Multan via Quetta and Dera Ismail Khan.
The project consists of two phases. The first phase will be completed at anestimated cost of $5-6 billion. In the second phase, compressor stationswill be installed at a cost of $1.9-2 billion.
Under the project, he said, a 56-inch diameter pipeline spread over 1,680kilometers with a capacity of transmitting 3.2 billion cubic feet per day(bcfd) of gas will be laid from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan andPakistan to the Pakistan-India border by the year 2022.
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As per the Tapi agreement, Pakistan and India will be provided 1.325 bcfdof gas each and Afghanistan will receive 0.5 bcfd.
Answering a question, the official said that member countries of theproject had signed an intergovernmental agreement and a gas pipelineframework agreement on December 11, 2010.
He said that Turkmenistan has already completed construction work on itssection of the pipeline while Afghanistan had also performed groundbreakingof the project last year.
He stressed that Pakistan is contributing its committed share to theproject activities, which made significant progress this year. A technicalconsultant has been appointed and the front-end engineering design has alsobeen completed for Pakistan’s section of the project.
