Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Feb.25 / Trend, H. Hasanov /
India is pleased with the progress in the country's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in his letter to Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov on the occasion of his election to the second term.
"The Indian people remembers successful visit of Your Excellency to India in May 2010. We are particularly pleased with the progress in implementation of the TAPI project. I look forward to continuing our cooperation to further expand and strengthen bilateral cooperation in various directions in the name of the two peoples' interests," the letter says.
In turn, the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, in his congratulatory message to President Berdimuhammadov expressed his confidence that " vital bilateral and regional projects will be implemented through joint efforts".
President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov urged newly appointed heads of the country's oil and gas sector to accelerate implementation of TAPI gas pipeline project recently.
At this stage, a principle of forming an international consortium is under discussion, and the project financing issue is being resolved. Russia attaches interest to this project at a high level and its implementation is supported by the United States.
The basic document for the project's promotion will be Ashgabat interstate agreement of the member states on start of initial implementation of TAPI project signed in late 2010.
The gas pipeline's designed capacity is 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The buyers are gas companies of Pakistan and India.
The project is promoted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Besides Dovletabad deposit, the largest 'Southern Yeloten - Osman' (Galkynysh) deposit developed in Turkmenistan may also become the raw materials base. The length of the pipeline may be 1,735 kilometers.