Gazprom In Talks Over $3 Billion Afghani Pipeline

Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer, has held talks with Pakistan about building a three billion dollar pipeline to bring gas from Turkmenistan to the South Asian country via Afghanistan.

“The delegation went to Pakistan just to find out more information on the project,” said Natalya Selivanova, a spokeswoman for Moscow based Gazprom. “No decisions have been made so far.”

Gazprom, which holds a fifth of all known global gas reserves, is looking for long term projects outside Russia, analysts said. Presently the Russian group is too focused on the domestic market.

“The company looks at potential ventures outside of Russia that will not be implemented in the near future because the current risks are too high,” said Konstantin Reznikov, an analyst at Alfa Bank. “It has to maintain its production at home.”

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