ISLAMABAD, April 11: The 8th meeting of the steering committee of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) gas pipeline begins here on Tuesday to consider future course of action and signing a protocol to take the project forward. Mines and Industry Minister of Afghanistan Mir Mohammad Siddiq arrived here on Monday to attend the two-day meeting that is taking place after about a year.
An official statement said Turkmen Oil Minister A.G. Pudakov will arrive in Islamabad on Tuesday morning.
During the two-day deliberations, the steering committee will review the updated progress on TAP and discuss the agenda of the meeting.
The Turkmenistan government will give a presentation on the certification of reserves in the Daulatabad gas field and feasibility study submitted by M/S Penspen.
The statement said the Afghan side would apprise the meeting of security measures for smooth and secured transmission of the gas pipeline crossing that country. M/S Sofergaz will present a regional technical assistance study report on underground reservoirs in Pakistan.
The Daulatabad gas reserves certification and its authenticity will mainly determine whether or not the $3 billion TAP project is feasible. This will then trigger a chain of technical, legal and tariff discussions.
The steering committee meeting was not held for the last 11 months owing to non-availability of certification of gas reserves in Daulatabad. It is supposed to meet on a quarterly basis.
Pakistan has been insisting for the last 20 months that certified reserves are a must for the progress of the project.
Sources said the pipeline politics had taken a new turn following an advice by the US administration to the Indian government not to pursue gas import plans from Iran. Following the US reservations, Pakistan has started pursuing alternative gas import options from Turkmenistan and Qatar.
A high-level Pakistani delegation will visit Doha on April 24-25 to attend a technical committee meeting with Qatar and Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum to pursue Qatar-to-Pakistan pipeline. Pakistan is asking Qatar to increase its throughput from 1.6 billion cubic feet (bcf) to two bcf, but Doha has not yet given any commitment to this demand.
It was in this background that the recent visit of a high-level delegation of Russian energy firm Gazprom to Islamabad was kept very low profile. Gazprom is interested in laying Iran-to-India pipeline and is expected to compete with BHP of Australia or join the BHP consortium if this pipeline goes forward.
The Gazprom delegation early this month held meetings with the minister and secretary for petroleum and natural resources, senior management of OGDCL and other officials of the petroleum sector and expressed its interest in the Iran pipeline project, besides exploration and import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Pakistan to meet immediate shortfalls.
Pakistan has already started the process to import LNG from Qatar and other Arab states to ensure uninterrupted gas supplies as an interim arrangement till such time a pipeline project materialized or in case it did not materialize at all.
Pakistan has estimated that it will require three gas import pipelines in the next 25 years to maintain high growth trajectory.
