China company to lead pipeline consortium

With global energy firms refusing to participate in the ambitious TAPI gas pipeline, India may propose getting a Chinese company to lead a consortium that will build the $10 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. French giant Total SA had initially envisaged interest in leading a consortium of national oil companies of the four nations in the TAPI project, but backed off after Turkmenistan refused to accept its condition of a stake in the gas field that will feed the pipeline.

Since the four State-owned firms, including GAIL of India, neither have the financial muscle nor the experience of cross-country line, an international company that will build and also operate the line in hostile territories of Afghanistan and Pakistan, is needed. Turkmenistan has clearly indicated that its law does not provide giving foreign firms an equity stake in upstream gas field.