Azernews.Az

Royal Dutch Shell and a number of major western banks are studying the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline construction project, Indian media sources said on Wednesday.

The Hindu / Business Line referred to sources close to the negotiations and Shell is amongst the companies that have expressed an interest in the project.

According to the reports, the project which has US backing had initially seen interest from Chinese and Russian firms. Road-shows were also held to invite financiers to the project.

According to The Hindu/Business Line, the participants included amongst others, SBI, US EXIM, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Macquarie Bank.

The decision with regard to the consortium leader and investors which will be made jointly by member countries in consultation with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is expected to be completed in a year's time.

"The work on the network is expected to start in 2015," The Hindu/Business Line said. "The pipeline is expected to be operational in 2018 and supply gas over a 30-year period."

The Turkmen side conducted several international road shows for TAPI in September with the participation of the ADB. It was reported that Chevron, Exxon Mobil, BP, BG Group, RWE, Petronas and other companies became familiarised with the main terms of the project implementation and expressed an intention to participate in it.

TAPI aims at ensuring the long term supplies of over 30 billion cubic meters of Turkmen natural gas to South-East Asia annually. The start of the project was signed in Ashgabat in late 2010.

ADB has been acting as the secretariat in the TAPI project. It previously reported that after more than 20 years of complex negotiations, an 1800-kilometre gas pipeline which will connect one of the largest energy suppliers of Central Asia - Turkmenistan with a market in South Asia was one step closer to reality.

Turkmenistan currently supplies gas to China, Iran and Russia. Besides the South Asian destination, Ashgabat hopes to join the European market.

German RWE and a shareholder of another gas pipeline project - Nabucco have a contract with the Turkmen government. They are among the companies interested in TAPI. EU hopes for Nabucco to diversify its energy sources.

Turkmenistan may join this project in the case of construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline to the Azerbaijani coast.