By IANS
New Delhi : Petroleum Minister Murli Deora will next month visit Islamabad, where India is likely to formally ink documents to join the proposed Turkemenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
Deora will be accompanied by Petroleum Secretary M.R. Srinivasan and senior officials of the petroleum ministry and the Gas Authority India Limited (GAIL).
He will attend the meeting of the steering committee of the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-sponsored pipeline, expected to be held in the third week of November.
The ministers of the four countries are expected to sign the “Heads of Agreement” and the “Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement”.
The 1,680-km pipeline will pump gas from the Daulatabad gas fields of Turkemenistan, through southern Afghanistan, Pakistan and end at Fazilka in India. The total cost of the pipeline was estimated to be about $3.5 billion.
According to the proposed agreement, Pakistan will be supplied 34.26 trillion cubic feet of gas over 30 years, while India and Afghanistan will have to jointly share 17.31 TCF.
The three countries had initially signalled the start of the project in December 2002, when ADB submitted the final feasibility report.
India’s formal involvement in the project began in February 2005, when the union cabinet gave approval to the ministry to start negotiations for formal entry into the project.
But it was only after one year that India got the formal invitation to join the project. India was represented by Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dinsha Patel at the first steering committee at Ashqabad.
According to officials, seven rounds of ministerial meetings had already been held before India joined the talks last year, with the two consumer countries having raised concerns on the basic feasibility of the project.
“There were two basic concerns, whether Turkemenistan had the gas and whether it had the legal right to sell it,” said a senior official, who was involved in earlier talks for India to join the project.
The latter concern rose as Russian oil giant Gazprom heavily dominated the Turkemen oil industry, as a legacy of Soviet-era policies.
Turkemenistan assuaged those concerns by producing certificates of the actual gas reserves, as well clarifying that the contract with Gazprom did not cover the right to new discoveries.
But, even now, analysts are sceptical of the pipeline project actually taking off due to the volatile status of its route, especially in Afghanistan.
At the same time, India has always been encouraged by the US to show more interest in the TAP pipeline – as an alternative to the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline.
The encouragement is part of the US’ long-term strategy to bring India out of the orbit of Iran and bring it closer to Central Asia – a strategy which includes setting up the TAPI pipeline and a multinational electricity grid.
But, as experts point out, IPI is a better bet for being actually implemented than TAPI due to security considerations.
The increased activity on the TAPI project is in contrast to the stalled negotiations in the IPI, where India still has to resolve price issues with Pakistan.