Page 13 - AsiaElec Week 33 2021
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Central Asia assess fate of Afghanistan investments as Taliban regime takes shape
AFGHANISTAN
THE new hard reality in Afghanistan, with the country back under Taliban rule after 20 years, will prompt neighbouring nations including Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran to rapidly reassess the prospects of investment projects that essentially depend on Kabul’s sup- port and cooperation.
The future of plans for a gas pipeline, trade links to South Asian ports, power transmission lines and railways will remain up in the air until the direction of the new Afghan regime is clear.
The major risk is the regional CASA-1000 project, which aims to connect Central Asia to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In June, Kyrgyzstan announced that the elec- tricity transmission project CASA-1000 that it is developing with Tajikistan to send power to Afghanistan and Pakistan had been temporarily suspended because of coronacrisis impacts. The investment had anyway been moving along at a crawl so it’s not as if the pre-suspension schedule for project completion by 2023 had been entirely believable, but once ready to move forward the investment will need to seek security guarantees from the Taliban the way that Turkmenistan will have to with TAPI (see above).
Various estimates of throughput have been mooted. In March, reports said Tajikistan was aiming to supply 1,300 MW to Pakistan via Afghanistan under CASA-1000 project. Under the original terms, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were meant to jointly supply 1,300 MW to Paki- stan. Tajikistan has also said it is planning to export 75bn kWh of electricity via CASA-1000
over 15 years after the project completion.
In March, Afghanistan-based Tolo News reported officials as saying only 30% of the CASA-1000 construction on the Afghan section of the power transmission project was complete, a progress level that was not in line with an opti- mistic pledge to complete the Afghan section
within this year.
For Turkmenistan, much is at risk. In Febru-
ary, a Taliban delegation paid a surprise visit to Turkmenistan to restate support for the planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.
The fortunes of Turkmenistan’s battered economy almost entirely hinge on gas sales to China. The other customer, Russia, buys just small amounts.
Thus, TAPI is a crucial element of the Turk- mens’ search for badly needed additional reve- nues. The Taliban have also made encouraging noises as regards proposed Turkmenistan-Af- ghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) high-voltage power transmission lines and railways that would run from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, given the huge risk factor caused by investors’ lack of trust in a funda- mentalist group like the Taliban (whose finan- cial fortunes are built on producing opium and heroin), running a regime that has essentially emerged out of a military coup, Turkmenistan will have its work cut out securing the financing for TAPI, TAP and other Afghanistan-depend- ent projects.
Week 33 18•August•2021 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P13
