ISLAMABAD, Dec 9: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan will sign a tripartite Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement at a summit meeting in Ashkabad on Dec 26-27 to formally launch the $3.2 billion Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline Project, a senior government official told Dawn on Monday.
“Subject to confirmation of dates by the heads of the states, the tripartite summit would take place in Ashkabad on Dec 26 to sign the agreement,” secretary petroleum M. Abdullah Yousaf said.
It was, however, unclear yet whether the president or the prime minister would represent Pakistan at the Ashkabad summit, said the secretary petroleum who had a meeting at the prime minister secretariat early in the morning.
Accordingly, a steering committee meeting scheduled for Dec 16-17 in Islamabad is being postponed till February next year. “The steering committee meeting is now likely to be postponed till February next year,” he confirmed.
Pakistan and the Asian Development Bank would instead meet on Dec 16-17 at the operational level in Islamabad to hold final discussions on Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement, the secretary said.
The ADB is currently working on the feasibility study of the 1,500-km pipeline from Turkmen gas field across Afghanistan to Gwadar and is assisting the three states to finalize the framework agreement and launch the project. The bank is financing the feasibility study and has promised along with the World Bank to be major financiers of the project as well.
The three sides were earlier planning to sign the agreement at the operational level but Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov insisted the heads of states should sign the agreement to give the project a boost, petroleum ministry sources said.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai is reported to have already confirmed his availability for the tripartite summit on December 26-27, these sources said.
The gas framework agreement would trigger a chain of several agreements for commercial, financial and technical aspects between the three nations and various international donors and companies to bring the longstanding project on ground.
The agreement would be followed by detailed negotiations on commercial terms which would pave the way for the constitution of the consortium to lay the pipeline from central Asia to South Asia.
The project has seven stages including feasibility, survey, design and engineering, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance and installation of gas processing plant in Gwadar.
The agreement besides legal and regulatory framework would also cover broad parameters of the financing options, security aspects and the involvement of allied industries and related economic cooperation, sources said. The ADB is interested in developing a mega project of gas pipeline network in South Asia involving Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran and India that could involve all the three gas options Pakistan was currently keeping open.
India currently required 5 to 6 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day of gas and the market would be growing even further. This indicated that perhaps India would be needing gas intakes from both the pipelines including from Iran and Turkmenistan.
The ADB has asked Turkmenistan to inform whether how many discoveries could be dedicated for the proposed pipelines so that final cost estimates and long-term demand and supply estimates could be made for the whole region.