MOSCOW (Interfax Global Energy) — Turkmengaz, has announced international tenders for the construction of two compressor stations for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, newspaper Neytralny Turkmenistan reported on Thursday.

The two compressor stations will be located at the 22 km and 204.5 km marks of TAPI’s Turkmenistan segment.

The tender is being conducted as two lots, one per compressor station, and companies can bid for one or both. The deadline for the prequalification round is 5 September.

Turkmenistan is in dire need to sell its gas to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India through TAPI because the biggest buyer of Turkmen gas — Russia completely stopped buying gas from Turkmenistan in 2016. However, TAPI gas pipeline project is still facing funding issues although the financial closure of this $10 bln project in scheduled before the end of this year. A United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report indicates that the traditional approaches to public-private partnerships may not fully cover the framework of this project.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) promised over $1 bln for the project and discussion with international credit agencies like SACE, Hermes and ECIO are in progress for financial closure of this project before the end of year 2018.