Four months after inaugurating work on the Serhetabat-Herat section of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, a spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum told TOLOnews that 2.9 kilometers of pipeline had been constructed and another 3.4 kilometers of the route have been prepared.
The $10 billion 1,814-kilometer pipeline is envisioned to eventually carry some 33 bcm of gas per year to South Asia from Turkmenistan.
The 214 km section in Turkmenistan was reportedly completed in 2018, with a ceremony marking its entry into Afghanistan, but as Bruce Pannier’s reporting then (and more recently) noted, it wasn’t entirely clear that the completion was anything but symbolic. Into 2019, Turkmen state media reported pipeline work as ongoing.
In September 2024, Turkmenistan held another ceremony marking the TAPI pipeline’s entry into Afghanistan. Former president and current Chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov was joined by his son, President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, and acting Taliban Prime Minister Muhammad Hassan Akhund on the Afghan-Turkmen border to mark the start of construction on the 150 km Serhetabat-Herat section of the pipeline.
In early December, Taliban authorities reported that “practical work” had begun.
TAPI’s biggest hurdle has always been Afghanistan; 774 km of the pipeline will cross the country, an enormous undertaking for the de facto authorities in Kabul. That less than 3 km being completed is an occasion for statements to the media illustrates just how low the bar for progress is.
The Taliban have outlined four phases for construction: Phase one is the Serhetabat to Herat section, running from the Turkmen border to the city of Herat; phase two will run from Herat to Helmand province; phase three will continue on from Helmand to Kandahar; and the final phase will connect Kandahar to the Pakistani border.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told media in December that work on the first phase would be completed within two years.
CEO of the TAPI Pipeline Company Limited consortium, Muhammetmyrat Amanov, said in March 2024 at the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan forum that the first section would be around 150 km.
Turkmenistan’s state gas company, Turkmengas, is the majority shareholder of the TAPI Pipeline Company Limited – the project operator – with an 85 percent stake. Afghan Gas Corporation, Pakistan’s Inter State Gas Systems (Private) Limited, and India’s GAIL each hold 5 percent in the consortium.
The pipeline’s price tag is estimated to be as much as $10 billion.