Turkmenistan Completes Its Section of TAPI Pipeline

TAPI Pipeline

Turkmenistan has completed construction of the gas pipeline in its section under the Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI) project, following which a ground-breaking ceremony is scheduled to be held at the Turkmen border city of Serhetabat on Friday to take the pipeline to Afghanistan.

The grand inaugural ceremony would be preceded by a Steering Committee meeting of the project's participating countries – Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India – at Mary City in Turkmenistan.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi also arrived in Mary, Turkmenistan on Thursday to participate in the ground-breaking ceremonies of TAPI gas pipeline project, lines of electricity transmission and fibre projects.

Talking to APP, Inter State Gas Systems (ISGS) Managing Director Mobin Saulat said that the event was a historic and significant turn in the pipeline's history. Saulat, who is in Turkmenistan to attend bilateral and multilateral meetings on the TAPI project, said that ISGS, which is the project execution company in Pakistan, had initiated FEED (Front End Engineering Design) activities of the TAPI gas pipeline project's Pakistan section in March 2017.

"Since then the company has moved diligently towards TAPI gas pipeline's practical implementation," he added.

Saulat said the pipeline would help increase the power generation capacity to meet the country's future energy needs, create more job opportunities in backward areas along the pipeline route and further strengthen the national economy.