Turkmenistan started work on a $2 billion gas pipeline Monday as the resource-rich but isolated Central Asian nation seeks to diversify its energy customers away from Russia.
Turkmenistan started work on a $2 billion gas pipeline Monday as the
resource-rich but isolated Central Asian nation seeks to diversify its energy
customers away from Russia.
Russia
and
several other countries had eyed a major role in the project, but
Turkmenistan
announced in a surprise move earlier this month that it would design and build
the pipeline on its own.
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov personally oversaw the start of
construction at the Shatlyk deposit 400 kilometers southeast of the capital,
Ashgabat, amid much pomp and ceremony.
"It's an important event in the modern history of
Turkmenistan
. Effectively,
we are strengthening the country's energy sector and will improve living
standards of our people," Berdymukhamedov said at the ceremony.
"We will create a single gas-transportation system inside the country
which will have not only an economic but also political significance.
"Thus
Turkmenistan
will
make its own contribution to global energy security," he told an audience
of several thousand people.
The 1,000-kilometer route, dubbed the East-West pipeline, will traverse the
country from east to west and will have a gas capacity of 30 billion cubic
meters a year.
Turkmenistan
sits
atop the world's fourth-biggest natural-gas reserves, and
Russia
,
China
and
the West are all vying to expand their presence in the resource-rich nation.
In March 2009,
Turkmenistan
announced an international tender for the design and construction of the
pipeline, and state energy firm Turkmengaz has said that around 70 companies
from
Russia
,
China
and
Europe
expressed interest.
However, the results of the tender were never publicly announced.
Instead, Turkmenistan said earlier this month the country's energy companies would
design and construct the pipeline, which is due to come online in June 2015,
themselves.
"We will build relying only on our own resources," Berdymukhamedov
said, estimating the construction costs at $2 billion.
The pipeline had been expected to bring gas to the Caspian pipeline backed by
Russia
, and
Moscow
had
long expected to clinch the deal to help
Turkmenistan
with
the project.
But ties between the two countries deteriorated last year when an explosion on
the main gas pipeline between
Turkmenistan
and
Russia
halted Turkmen gas supplies, slashing the country's income from gas exports.
Turkmenistan
,
which is now seeking to diversify its energy customers, unveiled a new pipeline
to transport Turkmen natural gas to
China
in
December.
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