The energy agreements signed between the Taliban’s Ministry of Mines & Petroleum and Saudi company Delta are among the most ambitious energy plans announced for Afghanistan in recent years.
The programme begins with oil and gas exploration in western Afghanistan, examines the use of gas for industry and power generation in Herat and, if successful, could lead to a roughly 700-kilometre pipeline from Herat towards the Pakistani border.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Mines & Petroleum has valued the Kushk–Tirpul contract at $200 million. Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban administration’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs; Mines & Petroleum Minister Hedayatullah Badri; central bank governor Noor Ahmad Agha; Taliban Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid; and former US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad attended the signing ceremony.
However, the programme presented by Delta is considerably larger than the initial contract. The company has described an integrated programme with potential investment capacity of up to around $50 billion over 25 years.
That figure does not represent guaranteed or pre-financed investment. The larger phases of the project depend on exploration results, confirmation of commercially recoverable reserves, technical and economic studies, the existence of a market, financing and subsequent investment decisions.
The central question is whether Afghanistan under Taliban rule can take such a programme beyond contracts and studies to commercial production and the construction of multibillion-dollar infrastructure.
Kushk–Tirpul: Geological Potential, Not Proven Reserves
The core of the Taliban-Delta agreement is oil and gas exploration in Kushk–Tirpul in western Afghanistan.
According to information released by Delta, the project area covers about 23,317 square kilometres. Planned activities include geological and geophysical studies, seismic surveys, exploratory drilling and reservoir assessment.
Kushk and Tirpul are not entirely unexplored areas in terms of oil and gas. In a 2009 assessment, the US Geological Survey estimated the Tirpul study area at about 8,700 square kilometres. That figure refers to the area examined in the USGS study and should not be confused with the much larger area covered by the new Kushk–Tirpul contract.
The same assessment estimated mean undiscovered resources in Tirpul at around 21.55 million barrels of oil, 44.76 billion cubic feet of natural gas and about 0.91 million barrels of natural gas liquids.
But these figures refer to undiscovered resources, not proven or commercial reserves. Exploratory drilling will be required to determine how much oil and gas actually exists and what proportion can be extracted technically and economically.
Previous studies recorded indications of oil, including leakage from an abandoned well in Tirpul, but no significant commercial production has yet been reported from the basin. Earlier efforts to collect seismic data in Kushk also faced security, technical and operational difficulties.
Delta’s first real test, therefore, will be proving the existence of reserves large enough to justify further major investment.
From Exploration to Pipeline: Three Parts of Delta’s Programme
Delta’s announced programme has three main components.
The first is exploration and, if successful, the development and production of oil and gas from Kushk–Tirpul. This phase would form the basis for the rest of the programme.
The second is a study of how gas could be used in Herat. Delta is expected to examine the possibility of supplying gas to Herat city, its industrial park, power generation facilities and other industrial users. If usable resources are discovered, Herat’s domestic market could become the first consumer.
The third component is a proposed roughly 700-kilometre pipeline from near Guzara in Herat to the vicinity of Spin Boldak in Kandahar.
Delta has named the proposal the “CentGas – Corridor of Prosperity”. The name appears in information released by the company about the new agreements, but the pipeline remains at the study stage, and construction has not been approved.
The potential cost of this section has been put at around $10 billion. Its implementation would depend on sufficient resources being discovered, feasibility studies, financing, permits and a final investment decision.
Such a pipeline would also require a sufficiently large market for gas consumption or exports. That brings Pakistan and wider South Asian markets into the project’s economic calculations.
The $200 million contract, the proposed $10 billion pipeline and the potential $50 billion programme are therefore three different levels of a long-term plan and should not be presented as a single financial commitment.
Delta and Khalilzad: Two Names Reappear Together After Three Decades
One political aspect of the new agreement is its similarity to efforts nearly three decades ago to establish a gas corridor through Afghanistan.
In 1997, a consortium called CentGas was formed to build a pipeline carrying Turkmen gas through Afghanistan to Pakistan. US company Unocal, with a 46.5 per cent stake, led the consortium, while Saudi firm Delta Oil, with a 15 per cent share, was one of its main partners.
From the outset, CentGas was not merely an economic project. The route for transporting Turkmen gas through Afghanistan to Pakistan formed part of wider competition over Central Asian energy corridors. It could have reduced the region’s dependence on Russian transit networks while keeping Iran out of a potential gas route to South Asia.
At the time, Unocal was also competing with the Argentine company Bridas to advance the project.
However, Afghanistan’s political and security conditions prevented the project from being implemented, and Unocal withdrew from the consortium in 1998. The idea of transporting Turkmen gas through Afghanistan later continued in the form of the TAPI pipeline project.
Zalmay Khalilzad provides another link between that period and today’s agreement. In the 1990s, while working with Cambridge Energy Research Associates, he worked on political-risk issues concerning Afghan projects for Unocal.
Nearly three decades later, Khalilzad attended a contract-signing ceremony in Kabul that once again brought the names Delta and CentGas into discussions about Afghanistan’s energy sector.
His involvement was not limited to the signing ceremony. Before the contract was signed, Khalilzad and Delta’s chief executive also attended meetings with Taliban officials on gas exploration, extraction and pipeline development.
This history does not mean that the dynamics of the 1990s are being repeated, but the new project also has political and regional dimensions worth considering, particularly if the proposed route is eventually linked to Pakistan, TAPI or wider South Asian markets.
However, no credible public document has so far identified Khalilzad as a shareholder, director or employee of Delta.
The US State Department told Afghanistan International: “Zalmay Khalilzad is not an employee of the United States government. Therefore, he does not represent the US government and conducts all of his activities in a personal capacity.”
Jennifer Murtazashvili, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said Khalilzad’s repeated presence could raise questions about whether he has a private or advisory role, but should not be interpreted as evidence of US government support for the project.
A distinction must also be made between a private Saudi company and the Saudi government. Delta’s contract does not mean that the Saudi government or its sovereign funds have committed $50 billion to the project.
If the project reaches multibillion-dollar phases, a central question will be which banks, technical partners and financing sources Delta can bring on board.
How Is the New ‘CentGas’ Connected to TAPI?
The return of the CentGas name is particularly significant given Delta’s previous proposals concerning the TAPI project.
According to remarks by Abdul Ghani Baradar during a meeting with Turkmen officials, Delta had proposed participating in TAPI before the new agreement was signed. Its proposals included long-term purchases of Turkmen gas, investment to increase capacity at the Galkynysh gas field and construction of a pipeline from Guzara in Herat to Spin Boldak.
The same proposal also referred to the possibility of extending the line, under a separate agreement with Pakistan, towards the Indian border and the port of Gwadar.
These proposals suggest that the Guzara–Spin Boldak route forms part of Delta’s broader vision for the regional energy market. However, the new project cannot yet be considered an official part of TAPI.
Under TAPI, the main source of gas is Turkmenistan and Afghanistan serves as a transit route. Under Delta’s new programme, the first objective is to discover potential Afghan gas resources and use some of them in the domestic market.
There is also no announced agreement formally linking the new pipeline to TAPI or committing Pakistan to buying or transporting the gas.
For now, the connection between the two projects is a strategic possibility rather than a confirmed element of the agreement.
How Was the Contract Awarded to Delta?
The process through which the project was awarded has also raised questions.
In 2023, the Taliban’s Mines & Petroleum Ministry issued a request for expressions of interest for Kushk and Tirpul, saying the contract would be awarded through an open, transparent and competitive process. Applicants were required to demonstrate their legal, financial and technical capacity, and a timetable was set for later bidding stages.
However, in the ministry’s publicly available archive, the full chain of documents from subsequent stages, including the list of qualified companies, assessment results and documents explaining Delta’s selection, is not easily accessible.
This does not prove that legal procedures were not followed. However, for a project with potential value in the billions of dollars, it is important to clarify when Delta entered the process, which companies it competed against and on what basis it was selected.
China’s investment experience in Afghanistan also shows that signing a contract does not guarantee implementation.
Chinese companies with far greater financial and technical resources entered projects such as Mes Aynak copper and Amu Darya oil, but both faced delays and disputes. In 2025, the Taliban cancelled a 25-year Amu Darya oil contract with a Chinese company, accusing it of failing to meet its commitments.
Pakistan and Iran: Two Regional Variables
The proposed route’s arrival near Spin Boldak would make Pakistan an important factor in the project’s future.
If the pipeline is used only to transport gas within Afghanistan, it could remain a domestic project. But to become a regional corridor, cooperation with Pakistan and access to a market beyond the border would be essential.
This comes at a time when Taliban-Pakistan relations are strained over the TTP and wider security disputes.
Murtazashvili believes the presence of Saudi investment could create some space for mediation, but fundamental security disputes will not be resolved by an economic project alone.
Iran may also follow the project closely. Herat has extensive trade, fuel, electricity and transit links with Iran, and any project capable of supplying part of western Afghanistan’s energy demand from another source could, over time, affect Tehran’s economic influence in the region.
If Saudi investment in Afghanistan’s energy sector expands and the Herat–Kandahar–Pakistan route develops into a genuine energy corridor, some form of geopolitical competition between Iran and Gulf actors in Afghanistan could emerge, particularly over economic influence, transit routes and access to energy markets.
However, the Taliban currently maintains active official relations with Tehran, and Iran remains one of Afghanistan’s major economic partners.
Delta is also a private Saudi company, and there is still no indication of direct Saudi government involvement in the project.
It is therefore premature to speak of definite Iran-Saudi competition over the project at this stage, although the potential for such rivalry could grow if the programme expands.
The Challenge of Legitimacy and Contract Durability
Even if substantial reserves are discovered, the project’s risks will not be limited to geology.
International recognition of the Taliban government remains very limited, and several Taliban leaders remain under sanctions. This does not make foreign investment impossible, but it creates legal and political risks for banks, insurers and international companies.
For a 25-year contract, another important question is how a future Afghan government might treat long-term agreements signed by the Taliban.
Annie Pforzheimer, a former deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Kabul, told Afghanistan International that the Delta agreement indicates that a Saudi company ultimately wants a role in Afghanistan’s energy market, but actual exploration or production may still be years away.
Pforzheimer said: “I very strongly question whether a ruling group that lacks legitimacy should be allowed to sell the natural resources of the Afghan nation.”
She said she expected any future Afghan government to review this contract and similar agreements to determine whether they had genuinely benefited the Afghan people.
The possibility of a future review could itself become a commercial risk for a 25-year investment.
From a $200 Million Contract to a $50 Billion Dream
For now, the Delta agreement represents the beginning of a long process rather than the arrival of $50 billion in investment in Afghanistan.
Exploratory drilling must first be completed and commercially viable reserves confirmed. If successful, using gas in Herat could be the next practical step.
Building a pipeline and transforming it into a regional corridor would be more difficult, requiring capital, technical partners, markets and cooperation from regional countries.
The political significance of the agreement is no less important than its economic dimension.
The return of the Delta and CentGas names after nearly three decades, Khalilzad’s presence and efforts to connect potential energy resources in western Afghanistan to South Asian markets all tie the project to broader regional dynamics.
For the Taliban, the agreement is also an opportunity to demonstrate that, despite very limited international recognition, it can attract foreign investors.
But signing a contract is the easiest stage of such a project.
Its fate will be determined not by the $50 billion figure, but by the results of initial surveys and drilling, Delta’s ability to attract financing and technical partners, the existence of a market for the gas, and the durability of the project’s political and regional framework.
If those stages succeed, Afghanistan could shift from being primarily a transit country in historical projects such as CentGas and TAPI to becoming a producer, consumer and transit route for energy.
If they do not, the new CentGas project could, like several major projects before it, remain little more than a plan and an agreement.
