Taliban Says 80% of TAPI Pipeline Section in Herat Completed
The Taliban authorities have announced that construction of the Herat section of the TAPI gas pipeline in Afghanistan has reached 80%. The project has been highlighted by Taliban officials even as newly released details focus mainly on progress in the operational section of the route in Herat province.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum said that out of a total of about 153 kilometers of the TAPI pipeline route in Herat, 150.3 kilometers have been prepared for project implementation. According to the ministry, this figure is said to equal 98% progress in route preparation.
Based on the published information, 134.2 kilometers of supervisory and access roads related to the project have also been built and completed. The Taliban authorities also claimed that, in the main pipeline installation section, welding and pipe-laying operations have been carried out over 122.3 kilometers, and 71.5 kilometers of it has been laid underground.
The ministry added that design work on Herat’s gas distribution network is also continuing in parallel, and practical work on this network is expected to begin in the near future. However, the exact time for the start of this phase has not been announced.
The TAPI pipeline is a gas transport project between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The pipeline is about 1,814 kilometers long, of which 774 kilometers pass through Afghan territory, and under the plan it will transport about 33 billion cubic meters of Turkmen natural gas annually.
Turkmenistan sees the project as one of the strategic routes for expanding its gas exports. Afghanistan is also expected, under the project plan, to receive part of the gas and earn about $400 million a year from its transit.
