Well, here's an interesting bit of lunacy:
Trans-Afghan gas pipeline deal signed: ASHGABAT: The leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan on Friday reached a long-awaited agreement for a pipeline to carry Turkmenistan's natural gas to the Indian Ocean via Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai, Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali and Turkmen President Suparmurat Nayazov signed the ambitious accord to build a 1,500-km two billion dollars trans-Afghan gas pipeline. "We are glad that this important agreement has been signed, as this is a significant step towards the realization of the project," Turkmenistan's Nayazov said.
Now, for those who will jumping up and down and saying, "See! We told you so!" I point out that there is absolutely no evidence that any American company has anything to do with this. In fact, the only American company that has ever expressed interest in any such project has officially declined to participate in this one:
The 900-mile pipeline will cross through Afghanistan, connecting the Davletabad gas field in southern Turkmenistan to the city of Multan in central Pakistan. Construction costs are pegged to exceed $2 billion, and 477 miles of the pipeline will be laid across Afghanistan. The pipeline will run across Herat in western Afghanistan and Kandahar in the southeastern part of the country. The project will create 12,000 jobs in Afghanistan, potentially earning vast sums of money for the war-torn country. [...] The Asian Development Bank is funding a feasibility study of the project. The study will be completed within next six months. According to Niyazov, the consortium for the pipeline construction will be formed during a trilateral summit in September 2003. The consortium will include large oil-and-gas companies and financial institutes. [...] In 1996, U.S. energy giant Unocal Corp., Delta Oil Company of Saudi Arabia, Russia's Gazprom and Turkmenistan's Turkmenrusgaz formed a consortium to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. The pipeline proposed by the defunct consortium would stretch nearly 900 miles from Turkmenistan's Davletabad field, across Afghanistan, to central Pakistan. Unocal Corp. has said it has no plans to participate in the revived project. In the meantime Japanese conglomerate Itochu has expressed interest in participating in the project.
Now, to be sure, I don't doubt that there may be American interest. However, we do not appear to be the driving force behind this project; Turkmenistan does.
That said, Afghanistan is still notably unpacified and disunited. If the situation is not, perhaps, as severe as previously (which can be disputed), it's still not very good. It's quite probable that the project will be delayed and disrupted by various warlords and their demands and attacks on personnel. (Americans would be utter and absolute fools to send personnel to participate in any such project any time soon. Then again, when it comes to money, we can be impressively foolish, can't we? But I digress.) Pakistan is not precisely the friendliest place to be, either, to say nothing of the situation with India. Should that heat up, the pipeline terminus would make an attractive target.
I understand the various desires that led to this agreement. I just don't think it'll come to anything any time soon.
Posted by iain at January 03, 2003 05:55 PMComments
How did all this happen?
It is not the American involvement that is important, it is the fact that a pipeline has (at all) been built in this area taking the gas outside the traditional Russian, or European markets.
I am keen to know who the beneficiaries - any nation or company that may benefit.
Anthony
Interested in Chritian prophecy
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Posted by mirza at May 1, 2003 08:42 PM
