pakistan wants early implementation of tapi project

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday called for speedy implementation of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project terming it critical for the regional countries.The meeting in Islamabad included Petroleum Ministers of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and India as well as Pakistan’s Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.The PM said that Pakistan would play a positive role for the early progress on TAPI and any delay would add heavily to the cost.He went on to say that Pakistan was facing an acute shortage of gas and that this project would help Pakistan overcome the crisis. On February 6, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Resources Jam Kamal said that Pakistan would host technical group meetings of the TAPI project here during this month. All the countries under TAPI would participate in the meetings as the gas sales and purchase agreement had already been signed. He also said that project development was in progress while consultants were engaged in carrying out feasibility study and design.