PANNIER: The great mirage that is the TAPI gas pipeline

According to media in Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, September 11 was a big day for both countries.

Taliban acting Prime Minister Muhammad Hassan Akhund, chairman of Turkmenistan’s Halk Maslahaty (People’s Council) Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and hundreds of construction workers gathered at the Islim Cheshme border point for the launch of construction on the Afghan section of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.

In his speech at the ceremony, Berdimuhamedov called the occasion a “truly historic event for Turkmenistan and Afghanistan”, but outside those two countries the affair barely elicited a yawn.

And there were many reasons for that.

Around for nearly 30 years

The TAPI project has been around for nearly 30 years. When it was initially put forward in the late 1990s, the Taliban had seized Kabul but were still fighting for control over areas in northern Afghanistan.

The TAPI route as envisaged (Credit: DQttwo, public domain).

In the years after the Taliban were chased from power, there were many meetings between officials from the four TAPI countries and agreements were signed on feasibility studies, financial commitments, terms and prices for the annual 33bn cubic metres (bcm) of gas Turkmenistan was looking to sell to Afghanistan (3 bcm) and Pakistan and India (15 bcm each).

Pakistan had said it had started construction of its section of TAPI several times, but actual construction work on the pipeline never started outside Turkmenistan.

The estimated date for completion of TAPI was pushed back repeatedly.

Second time

The September 11 ceremony of two weeks ago was actually the second time the TAPI construction had been launched in Afghanistan.

The first occasion was on February 23, 2018, when Berdimuhamedov, who was at that time Turkmenistan’s president, then-Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, the Pakistani prime minister and the Indian minister for state and external affairs gathered in the Turkmen border town of Serhetabat for a ceremony linking two pipeline segments, one on each side of the border.

They then paid a very brief visit to the nearby Afghan city of Herat for what was advertised as the launch of TAPI construction inside Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan’s central bank even issued special commemorative coins (as seen above) in honour of the occasion.

However, the symbolic ceremonial welding of pipe segments done that day is, to date, the most physical progress made on building the Afghan section of TAPI.

While there was no progress in building TAPI in Afghanistan, there appeared, meanwhile, to be regress in Turkmenistan where officials gave assurances ahead of the February 2018 launch ceremonies that Turkmenistan’s section of TAPI was complete.

On April 2, 2019, Turkmenistan’s state website Altyn Asr (Golden Age) reported that then-president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov had met with officials on March 20 to discuss an upcoming Turkmen gas congress. There was also discussion of energy projects, during which it was reported: “Currently, construction of the 214-kilometre [133-mile] Turkmen section of the (TAPI) pipeline is being finished.”

Also on April 2, 2019, Russia’s Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant announced it had won the tender to supply Turkmenistan with 214 kilometres of pipe for TAPI.

Hopes resurrected

The Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 resurrected hopes in Turkmenistan that TAPI might finally be built.

Northern Afghanistan was relatively stable from 2001-2013, but after 2013, the Taliban’s presence in northern Afghanistan grew, particularly in areas along the Turkmen border.

Security became a large concern with the US-backed Afghan government pledging to send 7,000 soldiers to guard construction of the Afghan section of TAPI.

The harsh control the Taliban imposed on northern Afghanistan after August 2021 again raised the possibility that TAPI could be realised.

However, from 2001 to 2021 there had been better possibilities to find foreign financing for construction of TAPI, provided the security situation stablised.

After the Taliban regained control in Afghanistan in 2021, the security situation along the proposed route did indeed improve, but it became more difficult to find foreign investors since the Taliban government is under international sanctions.

The esimated cost for building the 1,800-kilometre (1,118-mile) TAPI pipeline is some $10bn.

The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) provided Turkmenistan with a $500-mn loan in 2016, and over the years, other parties have occasionally shown interest in the project, but a solid commitment from a major investor has yet to appear.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is involved in the TAPI project and as recently as April this year reiterated that TAPI was part of the ADB’s Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC programme.

Since 2015, the TAPI project has been managed by Turkmengaz, a company with no experience outside Turkmenistan.

Lending further caution to potential investors, Turkmengaz is a state company.

The Turkmen government’s financial data is so suspect that in 2020, the World Bank “discontinued inclusion of the country’s GDP data in its global and regional analytical reports, due to lack of reliable official statistics on national accounts.”

The International Monetary Fund followed suit in 2021.

Not deterred

None of this has deterred officials in Turkmenistan and the Taliban government in Afghanistan from meeting regularly to discuss the next steps for the gas pipeline project.

In March, Turkmengaz sent specialists to Afghanistan for three months to assist in getting the project started.

In early July, Turkmenistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Hoji Ovezov, met with Taliban acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki to discuss TAPI.

According to one report, “One of the key topics was the possibility of increasing the pipeline’s capacity…”

It was a curious observation since, as things stand, the major impediment to increasing the pipeline’s capacity is the fact that there is no functioning pipeline.

Other joint Turkmen-Afghan projects might enjoy greater success than TAPI.

The TAPI launch, or relaunch ceremony, on September 11, included the start of construction of power transmission lines to export more electricity from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, the laying of fibre-optic cables and the expansion of a railway line from Turkmenistan to Herat.

As for TAPI, it remains a mirage.

Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov said in July that recent meetings between a Turkmen delegation with officials in Pakistan resulted in “an agreement on holding negotiations on the implementation of [TAPI] … in the near future.”

As for the Indian TAPI strand, New Delhi is reportedly again considering pulling out of the project altogether due to India’s aggravated ties with Pakistan.

To conclude, note that the September 11 ceremony on the Turkmen-Afghan border had a fitting end.

After the officials and construction workers gathered at the site left, pipeline sections that were stacked in the background of the event were loaded up and taken away to localities inside Turkmenistan, away from the Afghan border, leaving nothing behind.