Page 6 - AsianOil Week 01

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Pipes delivered for TAPI
PIPELINES & TRANSPORT
A Russian steel pipe manufacturer has reported completing the delivery of pipes for the Turkmen section of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Paki- stan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline – a rare sign of concrete progress for the decades-old project.
ChelPipe, based in Chelyabinsk, revealed in April 2019 it had won an order from state gas company Turkmengaz for 150,000 tonnes of large-diameter pipes (LDPs) for TAPI’s con- struction in Turkmenistan. Delivery had been due to begin in the second quarter of that year.
ChelPipe confirmed in a statement on December 25 that delivery had been completed. The TAPI project is expected to transport 33bn cubic metres per year of gas along an 1,800-km route from Turkmenistan’s Galk- ynysh, the world’s second-biggest gas field. But the project has been held up by security concerns in Afghanistan and doubts over its
commercial feasibility.
The Turkmen stretch of the pipeline will run
for 214km. ChelPipe has said its contract covers “around” 200km of pipeline, although according to Sberbank, which guaranteed a $219mn loan from Islamic Development Bank (IDB) funding the order, ChelPipe’s supplies will be enough for the entire Turkmen section.
ChelPipe’s order announcement in April raised eyebrows, as the formal groundbreaking ceremony for TAPI’s Turkmen section took place way back in December 2015. In February 2018, the head of TAPI’s operating consortium even declared, erroneously, that work on the pipeline in Turkmenistan had been completed.
In another show of the project finally gain- ing momentum, Italy’s Rina in December announced it had been hired as a technical consultant for supervision and project support
services for the Turkmen section’s development, under a contract worth $13mn.
TAPI still faces significant obstacles, however. A final investment decision (FID) is still not in place, with international financiers reluctant to back a pipeline through insurgency-ridden areas of eastern Afghanistan. There are also growing signs that India and Pakistan may withdraw their support for TAPI, viewing increased LNG supply as a more realistic means of meeting their future gas needs. Both said last year they wanted to reopen price talks for Turkmen gas via TAPI.
As it stands, Turkmenistan has agreed to cover 85% of the project’s $10bn cost, with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India each pledg- ing 5%. This is an impossible task for the cash-strapped Central Asian state without inter- national assistance.™
Pertamina aims to drill Rokan wells this year
SOUTHEAST ASIA
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
INDONESIA’S state-owned Pertamina has said it wants to drill at least 20 wells at the Rokan oil block this year, as it gears up to assume operator- ship of the acreage in 2021.
US super-major Chevron’s licence for the block is set to expire next year after its exten- sion bid was beaten by Pertamina in 2018. The state company paid a $784mn signing bonus in December 2018.
Pertamina’s upstream director, Dharmawan Samsu, told reporters on January 3 that his
company intended to start drilling in Rokan in the third quarter of this year.
“This transition period is very important. We really hope we can start drilling in 2020 to main- tain stability of production and control natural decline rate [after takeover in 2021],” Reuters quoted the executive as saying. Whether the company is able to follow through on its plans remains in question, however, given that Samsu also said in January 2019 that Pertamina hoped to start drilling that year.
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