Economic Times: India to Renegotiate TAPI Gas Prices

India will soon reopen price negotiations for the gas it plans to buy from Turkmenistan using the TAPI pipeline, hoping to lower the rates from the previously agreed rates, which are dramatically higher than the current price of liquefied natural gas (LNG). 

The long-delayed $10-billion TAPI pipeline, planned to carry gas from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, still faces an uncertain future as countries hesitate in committing their share of investments due to the visible risks of a transnational pipeline through volatile regions. But Turkmenistan, which fears a delay in building pipeline may drive the potentially attractive south Asian market into the waiting arms of a sanctions-free gas-rich Iran, is pushing for the start of construction in December. 

The 1800-km pipeline is expected to carry 90 million metric standard cubic meters a day (MMSCMD) of natural gas, of which India and Pakistan will get 38 mmscmd each and Afghanistan 14 mmscmd. In a pact reached three years ago, India had agreed to pay a little more than $9 per unit for the gas from Turkmenistan. The transportation charges would have added another $3 per unit. MORE