Afghanistan says to begin work on huge gas pipeline

On Wednesday, Afghanistan said work would begin on a $10 billion gas pipeline traversing South Asia as officials joined dignitaries in neighboring Turkmenistan to celebrate its completion on that side of the border.

TAPI pipeline running through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India has been repeatedly delayed. “From today the operations will start on Afghanistan's soil," Taliban government spokesman said at the ceremony in comments broadcast by Afghan state television.

The pipeline will see around 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year extracted from the Galkynysh gas field in southeast Turkmenistan. Work on the Turkmen side began in 2015 and was initially scheduled to start in Afghanistan in 2018.