Hunt on for leader to lay $10 billion TAPI gas pipeline.

The four-nation consortium has revived the search for a leader to help lay the $10-billion TAPI gas pipeline, laying bare the lack of confidence among the countries to go ahead on their own and threatening to delay the project further. Just two months back, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India had agreed to co-own the project with TurkmenGaz, the state-owned firm of Turkmenistan, expected to make the majority investment in laying the 1800-km pipeline that would begin the construction work in December. Now again the timeline looks shaky. "The key challenge is to select a consortium leader or a partner. We are still looking for one," said BC Tripathi, chairman of GAIL, the state-run firm that represents India in the consortium. The top executives of GAIL and other state companies representing three other nations have been negotiating the terms between themselves and figuring out the nuances of the project for the last two months since the oil ministers of the four countries agreed in Ashgabat to go on their own without waiting for a firm with experience in laying and operating pipeline to lead the consortium. Tripathi said it was "difficult to give a timeline" on when the leader or the partner would be selected and how much stake it would own. The partner would bring "experience, finance and the confidence", he said. None of the four countries have experience building or managing transnational pipelines, especially in a volatile region like Afghanistan and Pakistan where Taliban and other extremists could pose big threat to the security of the pipeline, expected to carry natural gas from the hydrocarbons-rich Turkmenistan to India.