KABUL-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, which was important project for the development of regional countries.
Talking to petroleum ministers of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and India in Islamabad, the prime minister pledged his country would play a leading role to materialize the TAPI gas pipeline project.
Any further delay, he warned would only multiply its cost. Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was also present during the meeting.
Pakistan, he acknowledged was facing with immense gas shortage and the TAPI project would help the energy-starved country to overcome the problem.
A day earlier, Mines and Petroleum Minister Daud Shah Saba was scheduled to travel to Islamabad to participate in a steering committee meeting of a trans-Afghanistan multilateral energy project called TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India) pipeline.
Saba had to represent Afghanistan in the 20th meeting of the kind on the $10 billion nearly 1,800-km-long proposed pipeline project that aims to export up to 33 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year and integrate economies of the four partnering nations.
Mines Ministry spokesman Mohammad Rafi Siddiqui told reporters in Kabul that setting a date when to start work on the ambitious project and confirmation of the pipeline’s construction by French giant Total SA would be on the agenda at the meeting.
In 2010, the presidents of the three partner countries and India’s then Water and Energy minister had agreed to complete the project.
Oil ministers of the four countries had met at the last steering committee meeting in Ashgabat (Turkmenistan) on November 20, 2014 and set themselves a three-month deadline to resolve all pending issues so that work on the ambitious project can start by 2015.
A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan said that later in the day, Dr. Daud Shah Saba, minister for Mines and Petroleum, of Afghanistan called on Sartaj Aziz, the Adviser to the prime minister on National Security and Foreign Affairs. Dr. Saba is visiting Pakistan as the head of the Afghan delegation to the Steering Committee Meeting of the TAPI gas pipeline project in Islamabad.
The Adviser noted that the TAPI Gas pipeline project was important for economic benefits to the respective countries. He acknowledged the progress made so far towards taking the project to the implementation stage.
Dr. Sabab briefed Aziz on Afghan government’s policy to attract foreign investment in the mineral exploration sector. Aziz offered Pakistan’s cooperation in joint geographical survey, exploration of natural resources, and training facilities to the Afghan professionals.
Both sides agreed on the need to establish a joint working group for promoting cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the field of mining and geology.
pr/rm
