Gas Group will provide door-to-door service for all sizes of cylinder starting first in Macro Ryan, with 5 trucks on rounds, and increasing to coverage of the whole of Kabul with 200 trucks in successive stages. The emphasis will be on quality, both of propane gas and valve and regulator combination mounted on the cylinders. Careful attention has been paid to the safety considerations surrounding this energy market both in the storage and re-filling facilities and with cylinder equipment. Everything is designed to maximise safety and institute confidence in the customer with the product supplied by Gas Group.

Presently, Gas Group imports propane gas from Turkmenistan by rail to Turghundi where there is a large 500 tonne storage facility with another 500 tonne facility in Herat. Tankers carry the gas by road from Herat through Kandahar to Kabul where there is an 800 tonne facility for storage and distribution. Automation of the cylinder re-filling process is in hand in Kabul. A 300 tonne facility is under construction in Hairaton on the Uzbek border and this will become operational in ca two month’s time. At the end of the year another 500 tonne facility will be built at Ekena, the Turkmen border crossing north of Andkhoy, with tanker trucks bringing LPG in sufficient quantities to service the projected market in Kabul.

A similar distribution system as is going into operation in Kabul will be rolled out first to Jalalabad, then Herat, Mazar-I-Sherif, and Kandahar. Once these major centres are fully operational, then services can begin to such population centres as Konduz and Pul-i-Khumri, eventually spreading deep into the interior. In essence, it is intended to provide energy services to as much of the population as possible in the shortest possible time, but in a planned and coordinated approach which will require significant logistical expertise, a feature of the experience brought to the market by Gas Group.