The caretaker government has reportedly granted special exemptions to the Turkmenistan Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) Gas Pipeline project, waiving it from the Open Access Regime, OGRA Gas (Third Party Access) Rules 2018, and the Pakistan Gas Network Code.
These concessions, as reported by BR, were approved by the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) under the leadership of Caretaker Minister for Power and Petroleum, Muhammad Ali. The decision, made last month, was later ratified three weeks after the meeting, incorporating desired changes.
Sources close to the Secretary of Petroleum revealed that the TAPI Gas Pipeline project aims to transport natural gas from Turkmenistan’s Galkynysh and adjacent gas fields to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
The project’s Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) and Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement (GPFA) were signed on December 11, 2010.
The GPFA outlined protections and facilitations for the project company throughout the pipeline’s life. Recognizing TAPI as a transnational pipeline project, the Government of Pakistan (GoP) committed to adopting a uniform legal and regulatory framework for the project.
Under the GPFA, Afghanistan and Pakistan were obligated to execute Host Government Agreements (HGA) with TAPI Pipeline Company Limited (TPCL). The Heads of Terms of the HGA were signed between the GoP and TPCL on March 12, 2019.
Negotiations for the full form of the HGA were ongoing, with the Government of Pakistan expected to grant concessions and permissions to TPCL for the project’s implementation. These included travel concessions, investment protection, facilitation for approvals, permits, and NOCs, as well as other considerations like security protocol/agreement, tax concessions, and change of law protection.
The HGA, once finalized, would authorize TPCL to implement and operate the Pakistan segment of the TAPI project for the next 30 years. The draft of the HGA, incorporating comments from various ministries and a review by legal counsel M/s Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer, was shared with TPCL in March 2023.
During inter-ministerial discussions, certain matters related to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) were raised by TPCL. These included gas transportation tariff approval, technical standards, third-party access, freedom of contract, and license under OGRA regulations.
TPCL also desired a waiver of sovereign immunity by the State, a commitment agreed upon in the Heads of Terms of the HGA in 2019. The Office of the Attorney General for Pakistan did not provide comments on the waiver of sovereign immunity, considering it a policy decision to be addressed by the concerned division and the Federal Cabinet.
A clarification was sought regarding the standard waiver of immunity in the summary presented by the Petroleum Division to the CCoE.
