Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

Turkmenistan plans to increase the natural gas export volume to China up to 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) this year from 35 bcm in 2016, Chief Executive of state gas company Turkmengas Myrat Archayev told Reuters on May 31.

Turkmenistan annually exports about 30-35 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China via a pipeline built with Beijing funds, and hopes to double these volumes by 2020.

Turkmenistan is a landlocked country and thus it is dependent on pipelines to export its gas on world markets. The three main export routes include Central Asia – Center Pipeline (CAS) to Russia, Central Asia – China pipeline (CACP) and two routes to Iran which are Korpedzhe-Kurt Kui (KKK) and Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipelines.

China is Turkmenistan’s biggest customer, followed by Iran and Russia. Turkmenistan lost Russia as a customer one year ago, and has since provided gas only to China and Iran.

Turkmenistan’s relations with Iran were also seriously damaged by the gas dispute over Iran’s debts. For now, the Central Asian nation plans to maintain supplies to Iran at 7 bcm this year, the same as in 2016.

The Islamic Republic has major natural gas fields in the south but has imported gas from Turkmenistan since 1997 for distribution in its northern provinces, especially during the winter.

Turkmenistan began to look for alternative consumers in the European and Asian markets. Discussions on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) have been ongoing for the past 20 years. While there have been recent developments, TAPI faces major financing and security challenges.

Alongside TAPI, Turkmenistan showed interest in supplying gas to Europe via connecting to the Southern Gas Corridor.

Among the Central Asian countries, Turkmenistan has the largest natural gas reserves and the world’s sixth largest reserves that amount 13.7 tcm.

--

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz