Unocal’s pipeline plans across Afghanistan

Last October, the Central Asia Gas Pipeline Consortium, called CentGas, in which Unocal holds an interest, was formed to develop a gas pipeline which will link Turkmenistan's vast Dauletabad gas field with markets in Pakistan and possibly India.

I would caution that while we do support the project, the U.S. Government has not at this point recognized any governing regime of the transit country, one of the transit countries, Afghanistan, through which that pipeline would be routed. But we do support the project.

We have the same relationship as we have with the other factions, which is that we have talked with them, we have briefed them, we have invited them to our headquarters to see what our projects are.

From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company.

By late 1997, a Taliban delegation visited Unocal’s offices in Sugarland, Texas to meet with company executives.

In 1997, the Unocal vice president in charge of the pipeline project was quoted as saying that his company had provided “non-cash bonus payments” to members of the regime in return for their cooperation.

Investors bailed out of the pipeline project in droves; several months later Unocal quit CentGas, saying it was unwilling to collaborate with the oppressive regime, at least until it was recognized as a legitimate government by the West.

According to the US Department of Energy , “In January 1998, the Taliban signed an agreement that would allow a proposed 890-mile, $2-billion, 1.9-billion-cubic-feet-per-day natural gas pipeline project led by Unocal to proceed.”

But Unocal now denies that a firm agreement was ever reached .

just a piece of paper that basically said they liked the idea of the project.

A few days later, the Taliban’s minister of mines met with the State Department’s top official for South Asia.

The former UNOCAL chief for the pipeline project, Marty Miller, denied working exclusively with the Taliban and told us that his company sought to work with all Afghan factions to bring about the necessary stability to proceed with the project.

Oakley told us that he counseled the company about the internal dynamics of Afghanistan and Pakistan but never lobbied the State Department on UNOCAL’s behalf.

While there was probably never much chance of the pipeline actually being built, the Afghan desk hoped that the prospect of shared pipeline profits might lure faction leaders to a conference table.

On December 8, 1997 Taliban officials, who were in the US under the auspices of Unocal, met with Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Karl Inderfurth in Washington D.C.