Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline fraught with difficulties –
The development of the ASEAN Council on Petroleum’s (ASCOPE) Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline (TAGP) system has hit a roadblock with security of supply emerging as a major problem for future pipeline projects. Conceived in July 1999 at the 17th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting, the list of pipeline projects under the TAGP system has been subsequently revised a number of times, mainly adding a number of completed bilateral interconnectors and also a number of new projects. These new projects are entirely dependent on the supply of gas from the East Natuna gas field in Indonesia. The development of this field in the near future seems to be in doubt due to the heavy investment required, which would jeopardise the development of the new pipeline projects.
While many initiatives are in place to help the development of the TAGP system and address the supply-demand imbalance issues of the ASEAN region, there has not been much progress in terms of concrete results. An analysis of the TAGP action plan and its evolution is important in order to understand which tasks the TAGP system developers have executed well, and for which tasks their performance has been less noticeable.
Evolution of the TAGP action plan
After the July 1999 proposal of the project, ASCOPE approved the formal master plan for the TAGP system in 2000. In 2002, the energy ministers of ASEAN signed an MoU for the pipeline, which came into effect as of 2004.
In the original action plan, the ASEAN gas grid was to be developed through seven interconnections by 2020. Among the pipelines on this list, one is fully completed, while another is partially done. Then, in 2009, the plan was revised to include eight existing interconnectors with a combined length of around 2,300 km for the TAGP project, along with five new pipelines that had a total length of 4,500 km which are estimated to cost around $7 billion. Three of the pipelines in the original plan were incorporated into the revised action plan.
