September 18, 2002. Copyright 2001. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

Pipe dream or the worldÕs next great oil rush

LONDON, September 18, Graphic News: New talks have begun on the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea, with U.S., Afghan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan officials pledging to move forward on the long-delayed project. 

The 900 mile-long (1,500 kilometre-long ) pipeline, crossing the three countries, has been delayed several times by years of military conflict in Afghanistan. 

ÒWeÕre very hopeful about the future,Ó Joma Mohammad Mohammadi, AfghanistanÕs minister of mines and industry said at a meeting in Kabul to sign the framework for a feasibility study for the project. Officials are expected to meet again next month in Turkmenistan to work out how they will cooperate on the project once that study is complete. 

The planned pipeline would connect the huge Dauletabad-Donmez field in south-east Turkmenistan with the industrial city of Multan, in central Pakistan. The Dauletabad field has an estimated 30 years supply to pipe 15 billion cubic metres per year of natural gas to south Asian markets.

The project is no pipe dream, two oil giants, Unocal of the United States and Bridas of Argentina, have been competing since 1995 to build the $2.5 billion gas pipeline. 

Earlier plans foundered during the Afghan civil war, but resurfaced when the Taliban took Kabul in 1996. Within a year the Taliban had visited both Washington and Buenos Aires. Unocal had set up an office in Kandahar; Bridas did likewise in Kabul. 

With U.S. government approval, the Taliban were offered a generous cut of the profits from gas pumped through the proposed pipeline. But following 1998 missile strikes on al-QaedaÕs Afghan bases by the Clinton administration the plans again went on hold -- only to be eagerly resurrected with the fall of Afghanistan's Taliban government last November. By December President George W. Bush had appointed former Unocal consultant, Zalmay Khalilzad, as U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan.

Khalilzad is well placed to ensure U.S. interests are strongly represented in the project. He conducted risk assessments for Unocal on the proposed pipeline from 1997, and prior to his latest position he sat on the National Security Council, where he reported directly to Condoleezza Rice, current National Security Advisor to President Bush.

Now, with a pro-Bush government in Afghanistan and the stationing of U.S. troops in the former Soviet Republics of ÊKazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the region is secure enough for America to unlock Central Asia's energy riches.

"We are strongly committed to make all possible efforts for the success of the project, and we look forward to receiving the feasibility study," Afghanistan's Mohammadi said. 

"We very much hope that the study will show the project is feasible, and once that is determined, we are not concerned about how to finance it and how to construct it and how to manage it. It looks as if all those matters are under control," he said. 
/ENDS
Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Energy Information Administration, Philadelphia International Action Center, ÒTaliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central AsiaÓ by Ahmed Rashid