TAPI is about to reach Herat without a signed gas contract

Turkmenistan's TAPI pipeline is closer to moving gas than at any point in its thirty-year history, and the gas is going to Herat. Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines and Petroleum reported that 122.3 km of pipe had been welded and laid along the 153 km route through Herat Province as of 15 September, the Times of Central Asia reported. The same reporting states flatly that no gas sales contract has been signed and that neither volumes nor a start date have been agreed. The first working stretch of a project designed to carry 33 bcm a year to Pakistan and India will instead be a cross-border line into one Afghan province, on commercial terms that do not yet exist.

What has actually been built

The Afghan construction figures are specific and they have moved. Of the 153 km Herat Province route, 150.3 km had been prepared for pipe installation by 15 September, 122.3 km of pipe had been welded and laid, 71.5 km buried and 33 km hydrostatically tested, according to the Afghan ministry as reported by the Times of Central Asia, which put pipe laying at roughly 80 per cent. The same outlet recorded 63 km laid in May and 116 km by early August. That is a real acceleration from October 2025, when the Serhetabat-Herat section was inaugurated under the name Arkadagyn ak yoly and the Afghan ministry reported just 14 km complete.

Two caveats attach. These are Taliban government figures, and Eurasianet has pointed out that progress on TAPI is hard to define given how opaque both administrations are; no independent verification exists. And the stretch is a small share of the whole, which the Times of Central Asia puts at about 1,814 km, with 214 km in Turkmenistan, 774 km in Afghanistan and 826 km in Pakistan.

A memorandum is not a contract

On 10 August, Turkmengaz and state-owned Afghan Gas signed a memorandum covering the purchase of gas through TAPI. It sets no price and no volume. The parties already have a gas sale-and-purchase agreement from 2013; what they have added is an agreement to build distribution infrastructure in Herat Province for industry, power plants and households, with price, required volumes and distribution arrangements still to be determined. Afghanistan's 5 bcm a year is the smallest of the three allocations under the project's 33 bcm design capacity, against 14 bcm each for Pakistan and India.

The timetable claims are proliferating faster than the commercial ones. Herat's governor, Islam Jar, said on 27 August that the local section was expected to be commissioned within two months. Turkmengaz expects to load the pipe with gas at the end of 2026 or early in 2027, bne IntelliNews has reported. On 21 September, Turkmenistan's ambassador to Pakistan, Atajan Movlamov, said Ashgabat anticipated supplies to Pakistan through TAPI beginning in 2027, on the reasoning that finishing Serhetabat-Herat this year creates the conditions for supplies to Afghanistan. Read that as the state claim it is: no timetable has been announced for extending the pipeline south of Herat, and nothing south of Herat is built.

Why Pakistan and India are still out of reach

Financing is the first obstacle. Ashgabat has paid for the initial phase largely itself, with some assistance from the Asian Development Bank, and bne IntelliNews notes that extending beyond Herat will require funding and technology Turkmenistan does not have. No financing package or construction schedule for any stage beyond Herat Province has been reported.

India's position has not changed. GAIL holds a 5 per cent stake in the consortium, but New Delhi has kept to a wait-and-watch posture, concerned that Pakistan could use the pipeline's transit through its territory as leverage in a future conflict, bne IntelliNews has reported.

Security has deteriorated on precisely the ground the pipeline must cross. Eurasianet notes that the planned route runs through Herat and Kandahar before entering Pakistan at Quetta. On 27 February, Pakistan bombed Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia and Jalalabad, and its defence minister declared "open war", with Pakistan's military claiming 274 Taliban fighters killed and Afghanistan's defence ministry claiming 55 Pakistani soldiers killed, Al Jazeera reported. On 24 September, Pakistan struck ten locations in Kandahar, Paktia and Khost after what it called a drone incursion. On 1 October, Pakistani air raids hit Kunar and Helmand; Pakistan's information ministry claimed 22 fighters killed, the Taliban reported at least nine dead including women and children, and UNAMA documented at least ten civilian deaths, mostly children, and called for de-escalation. A transit route cannot be tendered through an active air campaign.

The revenue projections deserve the same caution. In January the Times of Central Asia reported transit and related revenues of over $1 billion a year for Afghanistan and $200-250 million for Pakistan: forecasts for a pipeline whose volumes nobody has contracted.

What Herat changes for Ashgabat

Not much, in volume terms. Export dependence on China is the central fact of the Turkmen gas economy, and even that number is contested: Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said in a CGTN interview taped in Beijing in mid-March that recent average annual shipments to China were about 40 bcm, while China's ambassador in Ashgabat, Ji Shumin, told reporters on 27 March that Turkmenistan exported roughly 30 bcm in 2025 and that Beijing expected the volume to hold steady. Raising it to the 65 bcm Berdimuhamedov wants would require Line D, which the ambassador said is still under discussion. Turkmenistan holds the world's fourth-largest reserves, around 17 trillion cubic metres, and exports roughly 35 bcm, almost all to one buyer, the Times of Central Asia reports.

An Afghan allocation of 5 bcm, uncontracted, will not change that bargaining position. What it buys is physical presence: Turkmenistan is also building a 500 kV transmission line and a 120 km railway from Torghundi toward Herat, the Times of Central Asia reports. Herat is becoming a Turkmen infrastructure bridgehead. Whether it becomes a pipeline to South Asia is a separate question, and the answer sits with Islamabad and New Delhi.

What to watch

• Whether the Herat section is commissioned on the governor's two-month timeline, on Turkmengaz's end-2026/early-2027 line, or later, and whether any first gas is independently reported rather than only announced.
• Any Turkmengaz-Afghan Gas contract that names a price, a volume and a start date, converting the 10 August memorandum into a sale.
• The first financing or tender announcement for any stretch south of Herat Province, with or without ADB involvement.
• Pakistan-Afghanistan cross-border strikes, and whether UNAMA continues to record civilian casualties in Kandahar and Helmand, the provinces the route must cross.

Sources

• Times of Central Asia — Turkmenistan Advances TAPI Pipeline and Infrastructure Projects in Herat
• Times of Central Asia — TAPI Pipeline Moves Closer to First Gas Sales in Afghanistan
• Times of Central Asia — TAPI Gas Pipeline Advances Toward Herat, Afghanistan
• Times of Central Asia — Is TAPI Just 'TA' for Now?
• Eurasianet — Speed seems relative for Turkmenistan and Afghanistan in TAPI pipeline construction
• bne IntelliNews — China and Turkmenistan cannot get their gas export numbers straight
• bne IntelliNews — Turkmenistan's TAPI gas pipeline takes off
• bne IntelliNews — India's doubts over TAPI Pipeline persist amid security and geopolitical concerns
• Trend — TAPI gas supplies to Pakistan expected in 2027
• Al Jazeera — 'Open war': Pakistan and Afghanistan's Taliban claim major casualties
• Al Jazeera — Afghanistan vows to respond after Pakistani air strikes kill four
• Al Jazeera — Pakistan says 22 fighters killed in air attacks on Afghanistan