A Parallel Quagmire: The Trans-Afghanistan Gas Pipeline

[dixiegrrrrl]

Very interesting story, esp. to those who have been following the Adventures in Afghanistan over the last 20 years,

"The perpetually postponed U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan tracks a little too closely with timelines for another fubar project, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.

TAPI, as the pipeline is known, ought to be called TBD. It’s been a Big Oil dream since the mid-1990s, and a decade’s-long American military presence in the region has brought it no closer to reality. The Afghan news outfit Killid Media reported yesterday that “Little has happened on the TAPI natural gas project involving four countries a year after [an] agreement was signed by the governments.”

Planners are promising the project could be in operation by 2016. … Work which was delayed by security concerns will start from early 2012 and finish in two years…

Are the pipeline planners scheduling based on the projected 2014 timeline for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, or vice-versa? Does it matter? Either way, there are signs that the U.S. government is doubling down on the project as Pakistani leaders have indicated they might prefer a competing pipeline proposed to connect Pakistan and a U.S. adversary, Iran."

http://www.warisbusiness.com/7808/news/a-parallel-quagmire-the-trans-afghanistan-gas-pipeline/#more-7808

[rrneck]

1. I first heard about that energy corrodor in a geography class in the late eighties. nt