An agreement on a Trans-Afghani pipeline to be signed in Ashkhabad

The leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan will meet in Ashgabad on December 26th-27th to sign an inter-governmetntal agreement on the construction of a trans-Afghan gas pipeline and the creation of a consortium responsible for the construction, Turkmenistan's Vice Premier, in charge of the oil and gas complex, Elly Kurbanmuradov said on Tuesday. According to him, the Asian Development Bank that is preparing a feasibility study and analysing the Turkmen oil market, will compete the work by May 2003.

The 4th session of the executive committee for the gas pipeline construction scheduled for December 16th-17th was put off till February 2003.

A Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline will pump gas from one of the biggest Turkmen deposit - Dovletabad- to Central Pakistan. The reserves of the Turkmen deposit make up 1,756,600 million cu.m. of gas. The overall length of the pipeline with a capacity of 30 billion cu.m. will be around 1,500 km. Of which, 170 km will go across Turkmenistan, 830 km across Afghanistan, and 400 km across Pakistan. The project is estimated at about 2-2.5 billion dollars.