Turkmenistan's president said Thursday the isolated Central Asian state had the capacity to almost quadruple gas exports in the next 20 years and was ready to meet demand from Europe.
Turkmenistan's president said Thursday the isolated Central Asian state
had the capacity to almost quadruple gas exports in the next 20 years and was
ready to meet demand from Europe.
The country's giant South Yoloten-Osman group of fields alone were now believed
to contain a total of 18 trillion cubic meters of gas, President Gurbanguly
Berdymukhamedov said at a rare news conference.
That compared with 14 trillion found in a 2008 audit.
He said that
Turkmenistan
's
total gas reserves were estimated at 24.6 trillion cubic meters.
"Our gas reserves will last for many decades to come," he said
describing the deposits discovered at the South Yoloten-Osman fields as
"colossal."
There has on occasion been controversy about the size of
Turkmenistan
's
much-touted gas reserves, which the European Union hopes can be used to lessen
Europe
's
dependence on Russian gas.
Last year, Russian media reports said
Turkmenistan
had
massively overstated its gas reserves by two or three times but this was
vehemently denied by the British firm that carried out an audit in 2008.
Berdymukhamedov said that
Turkmenistan
planned to produce 230 billion cubic meters of gas annually by 2030 and 180
billion cubic meters would be exported annually.
Official figures for 2010 have yet to be published, but in 2009
Turkmenistan
produced 75 billion cubic meters of gas and planned to export 50 billion cubic
meters.
"
Turkmenistan
is
looking at the possibility of the export of energy to the promising European
market," he said.
"The interests of
Turkmenistan
as a
leading exporter of natural gas coincide with those of the European Union, where
a growth in imports is forecast over the next decade."
Currently,
Turkmenistan
only
exports gas directly to
Russia
,
Iran
and
energy-hungry
China
.
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