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Afghan, Pakistani, Indian Officials in Turkmen Gas Talks

Posted on: Monday, 13 February 2006, 12:00 CST

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Asgabat, 13 February: The heads of the oil and gas departments of Afghanistan, India and Pakistan visited Turkmenistan's largest natural gas deposit, Dowletabat, today. It is considered [to become] a source of natural gas supply for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan gas pipeline project.

At present it [the Dowletabat deposit] supplies natural gas that is mainly exported to Russia and Ukraine (42bn cu.m. in 2005).

The Dowletabat deposit will present a report certifying the contents of its reserves tomorrow, which will be the first working day of the ninth session of the managing committee for the implementation of the trans-Afghan gas pipeline project, the Turkmen Ministry of Oil, Gas and Mineral Resources has said.

[Afghan] Minister of Mines and Industries Mir Mohammad Sediq, Pakistani Minister of Petroleum and Natural Resources Amanullah Khan Jadoon, Minister of State of the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri [Jhaverbhai] Patel, as well as a senior Asian Development Bank [ADB] representative, Dan Brian, will participate in this session.

The ADB, as a sponsor of the preparation of a feasibility study for the project, will present research findings on the security of the gas pipeline at the managing committee's session. The project structure and possible investment scenarios will be considered. It is planned that Pakistani and Indian officials will confirm in Asgabat the volumes of the Turkmen natural gas supplies they will import in future.

The gas pipeline, which is 56 inches (1420 mm) in diameter with an operating pressure of 100 atmospheres, is designed for a delivery capacity of 33bn cu.m. of natural gas per year. Its cost is estimated at 3.3bn dollars. Six [gas] compression stations are expected to be constructed along the 1680-km-long pipeline - from the Dowletabat deposit in Turkmenistan to the residential area of Fazilka (India) on the border between Pakistan and India.

Source: BBC Monitoring Central Asia

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