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KABUL (PAN): Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on Monday signed a landmark agreement for a multi-billion gas pipeline project in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan's capital, the minister of mines said on Wednesday.
Wahidullah Shahrani told reporters in Kabul that petroleum ministers of the four countries signed the Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement (GPFA) for the 1,800 kilometres pipeline, carrying gas from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.
Up to 917 kilometres of the pipeline would pass through Afghanistan's Herat, Farah, Helmand and Kandahar provinces, said the minister, who did not provide a specific date for the launch of work on the long-delayed project.
In addition to the transit fee charged by the Afghan government, the minister said, residents of the provinces would be able to use the gas.
The project would be completed in 2013, Shahrani said, adding the four heads of state would meet in Ashgabat in December this year to finalise an inter-governmental agreement on the price of gas, the scale of supply, ways of exploiting the resource and transit fees.
Earlier, the cost of the project was estimated at $3.6 billion, but Shahrani explained with the joining of India in 2008, it went up to $8 billion. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan agreed on the project in 2001. India joined it in 2008.
Also present at the news conference, Gen. Munir Mangal, the deputy interior minister for security, said Afghan forces were capable of providing security for the pipeline, which would pass through Helmand and Pakistan's Balochistan province, where militants and separatists are active.
An Asian Development Bank-sponsored pre-feasibility study, conducted in 2004, indicated the pipeline project was economically and financially viable. The pipeline will carry 3.2 BCFD gas from Turkmenistan, delivering 0.5 BCFD to Afghanistan and 1.35 BCFD each to Pakistan and India.
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