Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Feb. 15 / Trend H.Hasanov /
Ashgabat hosts the meeting of the Technical Working Group on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project. The event will last up to Feb.17, an official Turkmen source said on Tuesday.
The event is attended by experts of the countries interested in the project, as well as representatives of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The agenda is focused on preparing an agreement for the purchase-sale of Turkmen natural gas and other documents, signing of which are planned for the first half of 2011. This will allow starting the project.
The background documents for the negotiations are the interstate and framework agreements signed in Ashgabat in December 2010. The participants of the Ashgabat meeting noted that the ongoing negotiations of experts are evidence "of the high interest of the parties to the speedy implementation of transnational gas pipeline project."
"The parties demonstrate desire to improve the efficiency of working meetings, which create a basis for accelerating the implementation of this tremendous natural gas transportation project with key regional and international significance," the statement reads.
"The TAPI pipeline will even more closely connect the counties involved in the project by ties of true friendship and good neighborly relations based on a clear understanding of shared goals, clear vision for the long-term cooperation," the local media quoted President Gurbangulu Berdimuhammedov as saying.
The length of the TAPI gas pipeline could reach over 17,000 kilometers, with a design capacity of transporting 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. Ashgabat assured that the country is able to smoothly respond to the demand on the Asian continent. TAPI gas pipeline will be filled with gas, most likely from the field South Yoloten Osman with resources of 22 billion cubic meters of gas, in addition to the Dovletabad field.
