Construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline will take about three years, said Chin Choon Fong, Senior Advisor of the Central and Western Asian Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
ADB is the transaction advisor of the TAPI project.
“The gas pipeline construction will start as soon as the consortium leader decides important technical, financial and legal issues. According to our estimates, actual term of the gas pipeline construction will be about three years,” said Fong.
He said that according to the feasibility study developed in 2008, total cost of TAPI was estimated at $7.6 billion, but according to today’s forecasts, it will exceed $10 billion.
In October 2014 ADB awarded a contract to British Penspen company to work out feasibility study of construction of TAPI gas pipeline. Penspen has concluded a sub-contractor agreement with the Dutch Royal Haskoning DHV company, which specializes in engineering, consultations and project management to implement important components of the feasibility study for ecological and social guarantees.
The feasibility study had to be worked out for 1820-km-long pipeline with the diameter of 56 inches from the giant Turkmenistan gas field Galkynysh to supply the markets of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. It was expected that the feasibility study will be worked out within six months, but it is still not ready.
“This is a big and complex project and it is hard to name the date of completion of the feasibility study. Meanwhile, we expect that it will be ready in the near future,” Fong said.
Experts believe that the main obstacle for the TAPI implementation is the problem of safety in the transit countries – Afghanistan and Pakistan.
