Turkmenistan, Pakistan and India signed a contract for gas supplies through the TAPI gas pipeline on Wednesday, a source in the Turkmen government said .
The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project will send gas via a 1,735 km pipeline, to be built by 2016, from southeastern Turkmenistan into Afghanistan and finally via Pakistan to India. The pipeline's capacity will stand at 90 million cubic meters of gas a day or over 30 billion cubic meters a year.
The Afghan authorities think construction of the $7.6 billion pipeline may create 50,000 jobs.
Turkmenistan is trying to diversify its gas export routes, as most of its Soviet-era pipelines deliver the fuel only to Russia. Ashgabat launched a Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline in 2009 and also sells gas to Iran.
