Natural Gas Pipeline Built in Central Asia

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani meets Indian PM Narenda Modi.

Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India finalized details of a massive 1,814 km natural gas pipeline known as TAPI in late February 2016. The project will cost $10 billion, with an additional $15 billion included to develop Turkmen gas fields, the Express Tribune reports.

According to the Economic Times of India, the new system will carry up to 90 million standard cubic meters per day of gas, with the fields capable of supplying the line for the next 30 years. Despite an anticipated 60 percent increase in domestic natural gas production by 2021, India’s total gas deficit is expected to rise from 300 million to 350 million standard cubic meters per day (MSCMD).

While this field will primarily satisfy the growing demand in India and Pakistan, with each nation receiving nearly 52 MSCMD, Afghanistan will also receive 14 MSCMD.

According to the New Yorker, Afghanistan will benefit with $400 million annually in transit fees, once  TAPI opens in 2019. This deal can potentially offer a reliable indigenous source of revenue for Afghanistan, which suffered from a 20 percent budget shortfall leading into 2015 and receives over $1 billion in foreign aid from the United States alone, making up one seventh of Afghanistan’s budget for the next decade, according to the Washington Post. Considering that 773 km of the pipeline are located in Afghanistan, Al Jazeera reports that some critics have legitimate security concerns, as the Taliban has stepped up its presence in the region since last year, Al Jazeera reports. In response, Pakistan’s Chief Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, has guaranteed the army would safeguard all of its major infrastructure projects, such as the new Chinese funded port at Gwadar.