TAPI talks falter over transit fees ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, April 18 (UPI) -- Talks over a planned natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan faltered because of disagreements over transit fees, a Pakistani official said. Pakistan hosted multilateral talks on the planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline. The project, backed by the Asian Development Bank, is touted as a rival to a similar project planned by Iran. Talks faltered, however, when New Delhi refused to pay a 50 cent per million metric British thermal unit transit fee to Afghanistan, informed sources in Islamabad told Pakistan's Daily Times on condition of anonymity. The report said Afghanistan has decided to opt out of the pipeline. The natural gas it would've received from the pipeline is to be distributed evenly between Pakistan and India though Afghanistan would still receive transit fees from its Asian neighbors. The report said TAPI is expected to transport as much as 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas from fields in Turkmenistan. The cost of steel and construction materials pushed the price up from an estimated $3.3 billion in 2004 to $7.6 billion in today's dollars. Another round of negotiations on TAPI transit fees is planned May 6 in Ashgabat. Talks scheduled for Thursday in Kabul were suspended because of security concerns.