DUSHANBE, November 18, 2013, Asia-Plus — Chinese company, Trans-Asia Gas Pipeline Company Ltd (Trans-Asia Gas), has registered its office in Tajikistan and it is expected to launch a joint venture (JV) in Tajikistan for construction of gas pipelines, according to Tojiktransgaz (Tajik state-run natural gas distributor).
“Currently, the sides are preparing constituent documents,” an official source at Tojiktransgaz told Asia-Plus in an interview.
“Trans-Asia Gas has a good experience of constructing gas pipelines in Central Asia and it has been implementing the gas pipeline construction projects practically in all countries of the region. In Tajikistan, the matter is construction of the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China through Tajik territory,” the source added.
Chinese news agency, Xinhua, reported in December 2007 that China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has established Trans-Asia Gas Pipeline Company Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary, to implement to construct the Central Asia-China gas pipeline (also known as Turkmenistan gas pipeline). Trans-Asia Gas would then set up joint ventures with the Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan development companies if approved by China, Xinhua noted on December 29, 2007.
The Central Asia-China gas pipeline is a natural gas pipeline from Central Asia to Xinjiang in the People”s Republic of China that runs through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The pipeline starts in Saman-Depe carrying natural gas from the Bagtyyarlyk gas fields on the right bank of Amu Darya in Turkmenistan.
As far as the gas pipeline that will be constructed from Turkmenistan to China through Tajik territory is concerned, it is expected to carry natural gas from Turkmenistan’s southern the Galkynysh gas field through Afghanistan and Tajikistan into China’s northeast Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The sides have worked on this project since 2006 and China will finance implementation of the project.
Specialists note that this gas pipeline, which is expected to be finished in 2016, may become one of branches of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (also known as Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline, or TAPI).
Expected to be completed in 2017, TAPI will transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India. Proponents of the project see it as a modern continuation of the Silk Road. Estimated cost of the pipeline project is reported at $7.6 billion.
We will recall that Tajikistan had received natural gas from Uzbekistan until 2013. Uzbekistan suspended gas deliveries via pipeline to Tajikistan on December 31, 2012 after both sides failed to agree on gas prices following the expiration of their contract. Uzbekistan, Tajikistan”s only supplier of gas, routinely suspends gas deliveries to its neighbor amid complaints of nonpayment.
