Page 5 - bne_newspaper_April_27_2018

Top Stories
April 27, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
The four main gas companies in the countries involved in the TAPI project – Turkmengaz (Turk- menistan), Afghan Gas Enterprise (Afghanistan), GAIL (India) and Inter State Gas Systems (Pa- kistan) – each own an equal share of the TAPI pipeline company, as agreed in November 2014 when the enterprise was set up.
Uzbekistan is also a gas exporter, mainly to China and Russia, but its export volumes are significant- ly lower than those of neighbouring Turkmenistan - most Uzbek gas is consumed domestically.
Tashkent has been showing an ambition to increase its gas exports lately: neighbouring Tajikistan recently agreed to resume Uzbek gas exports for the first time since 2009.
The Afghan segment
After years of talk, construction on the pipeline has actually begun. The Afghan section of the pipeline, which launched in February, is seen as the riskiest segment of the project due to the presence of extremist groups in the conflict- torn country and its success or otherwise will determine the fate of the whole TAPI route.
The pipeline is also a do-or-die project for Afghanistan where the economy is in tatters after years of fighting. The country, badly in need of new infrastructure, remains dependent on its largely narco-economy.
The Afghan component of TAPI will follow the 557-km (346-mile) Kandahar-Herat highway.
Afghan officials have previously said that Kabul will annually earn some $500mn in transit fees from TAPI and that the project will help create thousands of jobs.
Backers of the project, including the US and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which says it will help ease energy deficits in South Asia as well as reduce tensions in the divided region. However, the start of construction work on the Afghan segment of TAPI comes with the fate of the Turkmen section remaining unclear.
Uncertain state of the Turkmen section
There is little information on the state of the Turkmen section. While the government says it is under construction, the mere existence of it has been questioned by some analysts because of the lack of any tangible proof from the admin- istration of the tightly controlled country and its eccentric leader, who last October unveiled the first Turkmen golf course in a country where golf is virtually unheard of.
The TAPI consortium wants its pipeline to start exporting gas to Pakistan by 2020. Turkmenistan hopes construction in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be finished by 2019. The deadline for the Indian segment of the pipeline is unclear.
The first work on the pipeline started in Decem- ber 2015. The slow progress has to indicate that the construction of the infrastructure should be projected as taking longer than the originally set period of three years.