With all the fanfare that accompanied the recent start to work on the Afghanistan section of TAPI – the pipeline that Turkmenistan hopes will one day pump its natural gas to markets in South Asia – another equally speculative but potentially momentous development was largely overlooked.

Communicating with a construction site via satellite feed from a train station in southeast Turkmenistan on February 23, the leaders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, Pakistan’s prime minister and India’s foreign minister watched as construction of a 500-kilovolt power transmission line was formally declared open.

“In addition to supplying electricity to infrastructure along TAPI’s route, [the transmission line] will create opportunities to export power through Afghanistan to Pakistan and to countries in southeast Asia,” a Turkmen government statement read.

Published in Oil Price, 3rd March, 2018

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Turkmenistan-Looks-To-Boost-Electricity-Exports.html