Turkmenistan's agreement to boost its supply of natural gas to China by nearly two-thirds significantly expands the world's largest energy consumer's access to the clean-burning fuel, the sourcing of which is a key concern in China, where winter shortages are common.
China and Turkmenistan "have a lot to offer each other" and are committed to expanding energy cooperation, China's foreign ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said at a press briefing while announcing the deal Wednesday.
Liu didn't provide details on the gas deal, which was one of the 14 agreements signed between the two nations during Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's visit to China, state media Xinhua news agency reported.
The two countries also signed agreements on loans for Turkmenistan to purchase oil and gas equipment, Xinhua reported, without elaborating.
China National Radio cited President Berdymukhamedov as saying that Turkmenistan will increase annual gas exports to China by 25 billion cubic meters, bringing total exports to the country to 65 billion cubic meters a year, without specifying a timeframe for the expansion.
Such an increase would be equivalent China's total natural gas imports in the first 10 months of this year, based on data from the National Development and Reform Commission. January-October imports rose 87% compared with the same period last year, according to the NDRC's figures. Nearly half, or 12.3 billion cubic meters, was delivered via its Central Asia-China gas pipeline, which starts at the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan border .
The Central Asia gas pipeline mainly delivers natural gas from Turkmenistan to eastern and southern Chinese provinces.
China's full-year gas consumption will likely exceed 130 billion cubic meters in 2011, analysts said.
China is negotiating natural gas supplies with energy-rich Russia, but a long-running dispute about the price of Russian natural gas remains unresolved, as Russia is unwilling to sell gas to China for less than it fetches from Europe, while China doesn't want to pay more than it does for Central Asian supplies.
Energy-hungry China is also building oil and gas pipelines linking Myanmar and China's southwestern Yunnan province, with annual delivery capacity of around 12 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 22 million metric tons of crude oil.