ASHGABAT: Turkmenistan plans this week to sign a long-awaited agreement to supply natural gas to Pakistan and India through an ambitious US-backed pipeline that would cross Afghanistan, a source in the Central Asian country’s government said on Monday.

Turkmenistan, which holds more than 4 per cent of the world’s natural gas reserves, plans to sign the sales and purchase agreement for the Tapi pipeline on Wednesday, during an international gas conference in the Caspian Sea resort of Avaza.

“The plan is to sign the Tapi natural gas sales and purchase agreement with Islamabad and Delhi on May 23 in Avaza, by the Caspian, where the gas congress is opening,” the government source said, on condition of anonymity.

He gave no details of the content of the agreement.

The idea of the Tapi pipeline, an acronym formed from the initials of the four countries through which it would pass, was first raised in the mid-1990s but construction has yet to begin.

In a sign a deal might be imminent, India’s cabinet last week allowed state-run gas firm GAIL (India) Ltd to sign a gas purchase agreement with Turkmenistan.

Turkmen officials have said the proposed 1,735km pipeline could carry 1 trillion cubic metres of gas over a 30-year period, or 33 billion cubic metres a year.

But the route, particularly the 735km leg through the Afghan provinces of Herat and Kandahar, presents significant security challenges and will require billions of dollars in funding.

A US official estimated in March that the pipeline could cost between $10 billion and $12 billion to construct.

Daniel Stein, senior adviser to the US State Department’s special envoy for Eurasian energy, also said that two major US oil companies were interested in participating in the project.

He declined to name the companies.

Ex-Soviet Turkmenistan is promoting the Tapi pipeline as a key element in plans to cut reliance on supplies to Russia and to boost annual gas exports to 180 billion cubic metres by 2030.

BP data show Turkmenistan’s natural gas reserves equal to those of Saudi Arabia and behind only Russia, Iran and Qatar.

The country aims to supply gas from its Galkynysh field, better known by its previous name, South Iolotan.

Auditor Gaffney, Cline & Associates has ranked the field the world’s second largest, with gas reserves of between 13.1 trillion and 21.2 trillion cubic metres.

Turkmenistan’s unflinching policy of selling gas at its own borders means Pakistan and India would need to settle volumes, price and transit fees with each other and with Afghanistan.

India and Pakistan would each get 38 million cubic metres per day (mcmd) of gas, while the remaining 14 mcmd would be supplied to Afghanistan, it said. —Reuters