Turkmenistan signs gas sale pact with India, Pakistan
Kicking-off work on
the long discussed US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas
pipeline, India and its new energy partners on Wednesday signed
agreements that will pave way for laying of the 1,680-km line.
Turkmenistan
which holds more than 4 per cent of the world's natural gas reserves
signed agreements to sell gas to India and Pakistan through the USD
7.6 billion pipeline at the Caspian Sea resort of Avaza.
Describing
signing of the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) as "no-ordinary
event", Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy said the signing was "a triumph of
multilateralism, regional cooperation and economic integration".
The
1,680-km TAPI pipeline will have a capacity to carry 90 million cubic
metres a day (mmcmd) gas for a 30-year period and will be operational in
2018.
India and Pakistan would get 38 mmcmd each, while the remaining 14 mcmd will be supplied to Afghanistan.Besides
Reddy, the GSPA, signed by national oil companies of the four nations,
was witnessed by Turkmenistan Oil Minister B Nedirov, Pakistan's
Petroleum Minister Asim Hussain and Afghanistan's Minister of Mines
Wahidullah Shahrani.
"Without
a doubt, the economic benefits of the TAPI gas pipeline will be immense
for our energy-starved economies. The flow of natural gas will bring in
industrial and economic development in our countries," Reddy said.Stating
that in and inter-connected and globalising world, economics shapes
politics, he said: "It is our belief that the TAPI gas pipeline will
transform the politics of this region".
"Hopefully,
the spin-off benefits of this pipeline will encourage us to emphasis
trade and investment issues over contentious political issues and enable
us to build trust and confidence among ourselves as neighbours and
partners in progress," he said in apparent reference to the frosty ties
India has had with its neighbour Pakistan.
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