Launch ceremony for the Afghanistan section of TAPI in 2018
Turkmenistan's pipe dream
Construction of the pipeline in Afghanistan is making tangible progress, but extending it into Pakistan and India remains unrealistic for political reasons
The Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) pipeline is under construction in Afghanistan. Only 14km has been built, and industry sources say Ashgabat is financing the project itself, without any supply commitments. But this represents tangible progress for a pipeline that has been planned since the fall of the Soviet Union. But for significant political reasons, extending the pipeline to Pakistan and India is just as unrealistic as it was a decade ago. TAPI was born in the early 1990s, as newly independent Turkmenistan sought to develop new export routes for its vast gas reserves beyond Russia. Moscow refused to let Turkmenistan use its pipelines to export gas to Europe, instead buyi
Also in this section
5 March 2026
Gas is a central pillar of Colombia’s energy system, but declining production poses a significant challenge, and LNG will be increasingly needed as a stopgap. A recent major offshore gas discovery offers hope, but policy improvements are also required, Camilo Morales, secretary general of Naturgas, the Colombian gas association, tells Petroleum Economist
4 March 2026
The continent’s inventories were already depleted before conflict erupted in the Middle East, causing prices to spike ahead of the crucial summer refilling season
4 March 2026
The US president has repeatedly promised to lower gasoline prices, but this ambition conflicts with his parallel aim to increase drilling and could be upended by his war against Iran
4 March 2026
With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed following US-Israel strikes and Iran’s retaliatory escalation, Fujairah has become the region’s critical pressure release valve—and is now under serious threat
