The official groundbreaking ceremony for the TAPI pipeline was held in Turkmenistan on December 13, a milestone for a project that has been on the drawing board for over two decades. The pipeline would carry natural gas across four countries that make up
The official groundbreaking ceremony for the TAPI pipeline was held in Turkmenistan on December 13, a milestone for a project that has been on the drawing board for over two decades. The pipeline would carry natural gas across four countries that make up the TAPI acronym: originating at the gas fields in Turkmenistan, TAPI will carry natural gas through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and terminate in India.
The groundbreaking for the USD$7.6 billion pipeline was attended by leaders from the four countries involved, including India’s Vice President, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, and the presidents from Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
Fittingly, the ceremony was held not far from the original Silk Road route, an ancient trade network that connected East and Central Asia to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. And since the 1,800-kilometer gas pipeline could once again increase resource trade in Central and South Asia, it has often been likened to a “New Silk Road.”
A pipeline connecting natural gas in the Caspian Sea to India has been in the works since the early 1990s. In an earlier incarnation of the project, American-based Unocal was a key stakeholder pushing the pipeline, with the backing of the U.S. government. But Al Qaeda attacks on U.S. interests in the late 1990s, which had the backing of the Taliban regime, killed off the project as Afghanistan quickly became a no-go zone. Related: $10 Trillion Investment Needed To Avoid Massive Oil Price Spike Says OPEC
Years later, the project is being headed up by Turkmengaz, and it once again has strong U.S. support because the American government sees it as an economic development tool for Central and South Asia, while having the added benefit of working around Russian pipeline control. Despite U.S. support, TAPI has spent quite a long time in lim