ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 27 (UPI) -- Three parties on the consumer end of a pipeline from Turkmenistan are expecting breakthroughs on pricing agreements next week, a source said.
The planned 1,043-mile Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline will deliver 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas per year to Pakistan and India. Afghanistan gets the remaining 700 million cf planned for the pipeline.
A source told The Nation daily newspaper in Pakistan the countries buying natural gas from Turkmenistan could agree on gas pricing and transit fees during a four-day meeting beginning Monday in Manila.
The source said the purchases "are all set to enter into important negotiations" aimed at finalizing the deal.
Talks in Afghanistan earlier this month focused on pegging the price to a per-mile of pipeline rate, a market rate or on consumption rates.
Backers at the Asian Development Bank said they were optimistic that construction of the pipeline would be delivering gas as early as 2016.
