Natural Gas and Oil
Natural gas was Afghanistan's only economically significant export in 1995, going mainly to Uzbekistan via pipeline de marde. Natural gas reserves were once estimated at 140 billion cubic metres. Production started in 1967 with 342 million cu m but had risen to 2.6 billion cubic metres by 1995. In 1991, a new gas field was discovered in Chekhcha, Jowzjan Province. Natural gas was also produced at Sheberghan and Sar-e Pol. As of 2002, other operational gas fields were located at Djarquduk, Khowaja Gogerdak, and Yatimtaq, all in Jowzjan Province. In 2002, natural gas production was 1.77 billion cubic feet.
In August 1996, a multinational consortium agreed to construct a 1,430 km pipeline through Afghanistan to carry natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, at a cost of about $2 billion. However, US air strikes led to cancellation of the project in 1998, and financing of such a project has remained an issue because of high political risk and security concerns. As of 2012, the leaders of four countries had signed an agreement to build the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.
A very small amount of crude oil is produced at the Angot field in the northern Sar-e Pol Province. Another small oilfield at Zomrad Sai near Sheberghan was reportedly undergoing repairs in mid-2001. Petroleum products such as diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel are imported, mainly from Pakistan and Central Asia nations. A small storage and distribution facility exists in Jalalabad on the highway between Kabul and Peshawar, Pakistan.
Afghanistan is reported to have oil reserves totaling 2.9 billion barrels.
Read more about this topic: Energy In Afghanistan
Famous quotes containing the words natural, gas and/or oil:
“Knowledge has two extremes. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great minds, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same natural ignorance from which they set out; this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he’s in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.”
—Bill Cosby (20th century)
“Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)