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India May Join Turkmen-Afghan-Pakistani Gas Pipeline Project

Posted on: Tuesday, 14 February 2006, 12:00 CST

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Asgabat, 14 February: India may join the trans-Afghan Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline project. "We agree in principle with the Asian Development Bank [ADB] to bring the gas pipeline's route to India. We have a great demand for natural gas," Minister of State of the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri [Jhaverbhai] Patel has said.

"However, prior to our official confirmation of the participation in the project, we will need a better understanding of its scales, commercial deals' conditions of supply," the minister of state said at a session of the managing committee for the implementation of the gas pipeline project. The session was opened in the Turkmen capital [Asgabat] today.

The minister of state thinks that: "If India joins the project, the intergovernmental agreement between Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan `On the construction of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan gas pipeline', signed in May 2002, will have to be revised."

According to the ADB, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline from the Turkmen Dowletabad deposit to the Pakistani- Indian border (1680 km) will supply 30bn cu.m. of natural gas per year. Capital expenditures are estimated at 3.3bn dollars.

Source: BBC Monitoring Central Asia

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