Ashgabat, 4 September 2015 (nCa) — Turkmenistan has started the engineering and survey work on the 215-km segment of TAPI that will pass through its territory.
A commentary circulated Thursday by TDH, the official news agency of Turkmenistan says that the institute of oil and gas of the state concern Turkmengaz had begun a series of technical and geological studies for the pipeline from the Galkynysh gas field to the Turkmen border with Afghanistan. About 25 km of the track has been mapped already.
The studies will aim to identify the challenges posed by the difficult terrain, the optimum placement and capacity of compressor stations and boosters, the measures to prevent leakage and pilferage of the gas and the security of the pipeline.
The completion of the East-West pipeline within the next few weeks will free up the machinery, equipment and resources to start the ground work on TAPI leg in the Turkmen territory. By the first week of December 2015, the studies will be completed and the resources would be in place to enter the implementation phase. Turkmenistan has the experience, capacity and resources to build the entire segment on its own.
Turkmenneftegazgurlushyk (Turkmen oil and gas construction), a wholly owned subsidiary of Turkmengaz, will build a road running parallel to the pipeline.
TAPI will have the annual throughput capacity of 33 billion cubic meters via medium pressure pipeline of 1420 mm diameter.
The state concern Turkmengaz will act as the consortium leader.
TDH, in the same commentary, mentions that a few days a meeting was held in Ashgabat between Turkmengaz and the representatives of the Japanese companies Mitsubishi, Chiyoda, Sojitz, Itochu and JGC. The commentary says that the theme of the negotiations was the development of economic partnership and implementation of the joint projects in the gas sector, the foremost being the third phase of the development of the Galkynysh gas field. The use of advanced technologies for the primary treatment of gas and construction of gas refining plant were also discussed. The discussion is closely related to the preparation of the resource base for TAPI, says the TDH commentary.