The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is regrouping officials of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the third week of April to revive the Turkmenistan-Afghan-Pakistan (TAP) gas pipeline project in view of the energy shortage in the region, English language daily Dawn reported. India is willing to attend a meeting of steering committee of the $6 billion, 2,000 kms long project in which it has the status of an observer, the report said quoting unnamed sources. The TAP pipeline of 56-inch diameter needs at least 30 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas per year from Turkmenistan to reach Pakistan via Afghanistan. The sources said that an earlier steering committee meeting of the TAP project, scheduled for Nov 27-28 last year, did not take place after Turkmenistan signed an agreement with Russia's gas giant Gazprom to increase gas supplies to Europe at enhanced rates. They said that senior Pakistani officials had been informed by Iran that it had sorted out 40 to 50 per cent logistic issues to undertake the work on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project. Pakistan asked Iran earlier this month to finalize the project by April because of its rising gas requirements. And Iran said it was holding final talks with India to persuade it to join the project.
