Kabul to host TAPI pipeline meeting on Thursday

KABUL-India (TAPI) pipeline project on Thursday (March 19), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) announced on Tuesday.

The ministerial-level meeting to be held in Kabul would also involve technical teams from the partnering nations, the ministry’s spokesman told reporters here.

Ahmad Shakib Mustaghni added Afghan officials from the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum and the MoFA would represent Afghanistan in the meeting.

The technical teams would hold a pre-meeting discussion on technical issues concerning the pipeline project before the steering committee meeting, he said.

The committee meeting would discuss an agreement on their respective shares in the project, trade issues among the four countries and matters related to transparency in contract bidding, the spokesman said. 

He said Turkmen officials had agreed to some major points with the French giant Total over execution of the project. He said the project had witnessed greater progress towards its implementation since 2005. 

He said Turkmenistan had agreed to conclude negotiations with the French consortium till the end of March and member countries would be informed about the outcome of the talks.

Meanwhile, two other companies from China and Russia have jumped into the race for obtaining contract of the project. 

Back in 2010, the presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and the Indian Energy Minister inked an accord on execution of the TAPI project.

The 1,800 km pipeline aims to export up to 33 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

nh/ma

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