Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

The issues of the resumption by Gazprom of purchases of Turkmen gas were discussed at the meeting of the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov with the Chairman of the Board of PJSC Gazprom Alexey Miller.

During the conversation, Miller confirmed the interest of the Russian holding company in cooperation with the country and the implementation of mutually beneficial joint projects.

The Turkmen president noted the traditionally friendly nature of the Turkmen-Russian interaction, one of the current areas of which is the fuel and energy sector.

The parties exchanged views on the priority areas of the partnership, taking into account the strategy in the fuel and energy sector, aimed at comprehensive modernization and diversification of the sectoral infrastructure, increasing the capacity of the mining and refining segment, developing the gas and petrochemical industry and manufacturing competitive products in demand on the world market.

In this context, issues of the resumption of gas purchases by Gazprom were discussed. Here, the basic document is the current Intergovernmental Agreement between Turkmenistan and Russia on cooperation in the gas sector until 2028, on the basis of which the parties are working accordingly.

The discussion also touched upon issues of gas production and gas processing, the possibility of supplying "blue fuel" through the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline.

For many years of cooperation between Turkmenistan and Gazprom, considerable experience of interaction has been accumulated, and it will undoubtedly be in demand in the very near future.

At the end of the meeting, Berdimuhamedov and Miller confirmed the readiness of Turkmenistan and Gazprom to further develop the partnership.

Gazprom is a global energy company focused on geological exploration, production, transportation, storage, processing and sales of gas, gas condensate and oil, sales of gas as a vehicle fuel, as well as generation and marketing of heat and electric power.

Gazprom holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves. The Company owns the world’s largest gas transmission system with a total length of 172,100 kilometers. Gazprom sells more than half of its gas to Russian consumers and exports gas to more than 30 countries.

About 190 companies with Russian capital operate in Turkmenistan. The ARETI International Croup holding (formerly ITERA) has been operating since 2009 in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea on the basis of the production sharing agreement.

At the same time, Russia's Gazprom, a traditional trade partner, completely stopped purchasing Turkmen gas in 2016.

The strategic partnership agreement between Turkmenistan and Russia was signed in Ashgabat on October 2, 2017.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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