Pakistan is making renewed efforts to accelerate the work on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) power transmission line to meet growing gas and electricity needs.
To make progress on these important projects, Federal Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar held an extensive meeting with a visiting high-level delegation of Turkmenistan led by Deputy Foreign Minister Vepa Hajiyev. The two sides discussed various aspects of the two multi-billion-dollar projects and stressed the need to accelerate progress on them.
Hammad Azhar reiterated Islamabad’s commitment to the TAPI gas pipeline project and urged to expedite the project to help meet Pakistan’s urgent need for additional supplies of natural gas.
Turkmenistan’s delegation also included Chairman of the Board and CEO TAPI Pipeline Company Limited Muhammetmyrat Amanov, Head of the Department of International Power Projects in the direction of Turkmenistan–Afghanistan-Pakistan, Ministry of Energy of Turkmenistan Artykov and Ambassador of Turkmenistan to Pakistan Atadjan Movlamov.
TAPI
TAPI is a 1,840-km long pipeline project to supply natural gas from Galkynysh and adjacent gas fields in Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India through Afghanistan. Once completed, the project will deliver up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to the other three member countries of the project. The project was signed in 2010 but has been stalled due to differences over price review and the delivery point. Asian Development Bank (ADB) is funding the project.
TAP power project
The TAP power project, on the other hand, involves the construction of around a 500-km long 500-kilovolt transmission line between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Signed in 2018, the project is expected to transfer up to 4,000 megawatts of power from Turkmenistan into the other two countries. This project will help address Pakistan’s electricity needs in summers when the demand surpasses 25,000 megawatts.
Pakistan facing gas shortages
Pakistan is one of the rare countries in the world where natural gas has remained available to households at dirt-cheap prices for almost a half-century. Even today, natural gas contributes about 35 per cent of the primary energy supply mix of the country.
But severe gas shortages and load shedding, especially during winters months, have forced the country to explore local gas resources as well as import highly-expensive LNG.