On 10 December Yakshigeldi Kakayev, counselor to the President of Turkmenistan overseeing oil and gas, briefed Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov on the results of the international tender announced by the joint stock company TАPI Pipeline Company Limited on rendering services to draw up the strategy for insuring the TAPI pipeline construction project as well as to work out the insurance program, hold negotiations with major world’s insurance companies and conclude contracts.
The state information agency TDH reports that “efficient technical and commercial proposals have been submitted to the tender commission, for instance, from the UK-based Willis Towers Watson”.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov approved the TAPI constriction works in general and charged Kakayev with some tasks pertaining to further interaction with international organizations and instructed that the construction progress be kept under constant control.
Let us recall that on 7 December Pakistan hosted a meeting bringing together Chairperson of TAPI Pipeline Company Ltd Mukhammetrmyrat Amanov and Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources where the Turkmen side asked the Minister to have an inaugural ceremony for the Pakistan section of the gas pipeline in March 2019 in Pakistan and launch the construction works in 2019.
With reference to Amanov Pakistan’s news outlet Dawn reported that the pipeline would be laid till Pakistan in two years and it would take between six and eight months to lay the pipeline from Pakistan to India.
In mid November Amanov said that the value of the TAPI project was decreased to $7 billion, from an initial estimate of $10 billion.A week late Turkmenistan purchased pipes worth $40 mln for the construction of the TAPI Turkmen leg, despite the fact that it had been previously reported that the construction works had already been completed on the territory of Turkmenistan.
Willis Towers Watson is the world’s third largest insurance company which operates in over 140 countries.