Turkmenistan is moving ahead with the construction of a nearly 2,000 kilometer pipeline that will deliver natural gas from the Caspian region to energy-starved South Asia.
Turkmengas, which is responsible for the development of Turkmenistan’s natural gas fields, issued two notices last week for international companies and consultants to submit credentials that show their abilities to build and provide technical supervision over the construction of Turkmenistan’s portion of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.
The TAPI project is set to export about 33 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year through a pipeline that starts in eastern Turkmenistan, cuts through western and southern Afghanistan, central Pakistan, and ends in northwestern India. Turkmenistan, which has the world’s fourth largest proven natural gas reserves according to energy firm British Petroleum (BP), will provide five bcm to Afghanistan and 14 bcm each to Pakistan and India.
Turkmengas’ pre-qualification procurement notice specifically requests assistance with delivering the materials needed to construct Turkmenistan’s part of the pipeline, which will be 214 kilometers in length. Also needed is designing and constructing a compressor station, as well as delivery of service equipment and automation of the pipeline. The notice states that invitations for bid will be made sometime in June.
The 56-inch, 1,814 kilometer TAPI pipeline starts at the Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan’s southeast, discovered in 2006 and considered the world’s second largest, with an estimated 13.1 trillion to 21.2 trillion cubic meters of reserves. In Afghanistan, the pipeline will be laid alongside the Kandahar–Herat Highway in western Afghanistan, and then enter Pakistan via the cities of Quetta and Multan. The pipeline’s final destination is the Indian town of Fazilka, about 420 kilometers from India’s capital New Delhi.
TAPI will have a capacity of 90 million standard cubic meters a day of gas for 30 years, and is planned to be operational by 2020, although the project has been beleaguered by set-backs such as financial and security concerns. Estimated to cost $10 billion, the project is well over the Asian Development Bank’s initial projection, made in 2002, of $2.6 billion.
In January, Turkmenistan’s government applied for a $700 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to pay for its section of TAPI, or 214 km – just a fraction of the total cost of the project and representing over eight percent of Turkmenistan’s financial outlay of $8.5 billion.